I was planning on teaching my classes about Dia de los muertos and Halloween. I would have to take all of the period to explain the history and the practices,. I also wanted to maybe show The Nightmare Before Christmas, have some students bob for apples and have each class carve a pumpkin. That will take more than a class schedule and It will probably work with the help of some teachers because I cannot speak Japanese to instruct the students. Is this too much? I`ve heard of some ALTs who would have haunted houses in the gym for the students. What do people usually do? And is there any money in the school budget for me to buy the pumpkins and the apples or should I not even ask?
Firstly, check to see if food and sharp objects are okay. Also, how many classes are you planning on doing this in? It could get very expensive. There's no harm in asking if they can give you some money but don't be surprised if they say no. All of these activities put together sounds like it would be 2 - 3 lessons easy. Most of the kids know Nightmare Before Christmas, so I would probably just skip that and go for more cultural things they're not familar with.
When I've taught Halloween we usually do a crossword of Halloween vocab, some karuta or criss cross to practice the vocab, we watch a short video about Halloween and the students answer questions about the video on a worksheet, then we do a trick or treating dialog. No candy because food is a big no no!
actually as far as sweets and chocolates go, that depends on the school, at my school (and my guest school last year) they are fine with sweeties, especially in the halloween class. i would recommend apple bobbing, but be aware that kids with crazy/complicated hair styles are NOT willing to get it wet! saying that, at my low academic school they went CRAZY over apple bobbing last year!!
knives were not allowed at that school , so instead they designed pumpkins on a blank pumpkin template i made with coloured pencils or felt tips, and then voted on different categories, like, which was most scarey/funny/colourful or whatever, and that person got more sweeties.
good luck with it!
Sorry, slight de-rail, but . . ..Tara, could you please post the pumpkin template you used? I would like to try that activity with my ES kids!! Thanks
sure, i ll see if i can find it, it might now only exist on the Echi High School desktops, and there is no longer an ALT there, but i ll look through my flash and other documents .( if not, u could always just draw a big pumpkin outline i spose :) )
When I've taught Halloween we usually do a crossword of Halloween vocab, some karuta or criss cross to practice the vocab, we watch a short video about Halloween and the students answer questions about the video on a worksheet, then we do a trick or treating dialog. No candy because food is a big no no!