I Flop at Kindergarten

Okay, I didn't quite flop but I wasn't my usual smash hit.
On Fridays, I always go to the Elementary School and Kindergarten. I have three lessons at Elementary and two at Kindergarten. The Kindergarten lessons are pretty short since I have to fit both of them into one hour so with set up and everything I really only get 20 minutes with each group. Kindergarten here is actually two grades so it kind of combines Preschool and Kindergarten. The first class is made up of the four year olds, and the second is the five year olds.
So, since Halloween is Sunday I figured I'd base my lesson around that. I borrowed a really simple English book called "What is Halloween?" and combined that with a short explanation of Halloween in Japanese.

Now, the four year olds were pretty happy to look at the pictures and listen to the bits of Japanese translation I used as well as the assistance the teachers gave so overall that went pretty well. The enjoyed chanting "Trick or Treat" whenever it came up in the book and seemed to follow it.
But the five year olds were more caught up in trying to follow the English and got frustrated because they didn't quite understand it. When I finished the book several of them announced that they hadn't understood anything so I had to convince them that they caught the important bits, which was basically just that you wear costumes, say "Trick or Treat", and get candy. They understood all of that, but still felt like they hadn't understood what had happened. Then our time was up and I had to leave. Felt kind of like a failure.

But then back at the Elementary I got back in the swing of things and we enjoyed some rousing games. Pretty simple but the kids loved it. I just introduced six words having to do with Halloween :bat, pumpkin, witch, moon, ghost, black cat. I showed pictures of them, then gave each kid a piece of paper with all six of these images on it. Then I would call out one word and they had to cut out that picture as fast as they could. They were pretty competitive anyhow, but you throw in the promise of stickers for prizes to the first couple of kids to finish and they go nuts! Then, when we had finished all of the pictures they got into groups of four and we played a game called karuta. This is also pretty simple. They take one group of six images and place them in the middle of their desks. I call out a word and the first kid to get their hands on it wins. After we do all six, the kid from each group with the most cards wins and then they get a sticker. I was happy to see that different kids won this part. Especially this one fourth grader. She is pretty smart and a really cute kid, but her left arm ends just below the elbow. Doesn't seem to phase her a bit, but it made it impossible for her to cut out the pictures nearly as fast as the other kids. I hadn't really considered that when I decided to do this. However, her right arm is apparently pretty quick because she dominated her group in karuta. And she got a sticker of Mickey Mouse who she apparently really likes (she told me so after class) and I felt much better about the whole thing.

So there. Teaching and stuff.

Oh yeah, and check out the pic of me in my costume up above. First person to post a comment stating who I'm supposed to be will get... umm... something. From Japan. And it'll be, you know, something.