Lucky Cricket: It's Thanksgiving Time

It's Thanksgiving Time, by the awesome Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan

It's a holiday week for Grade 2 and we are all happy happy happy

I've had fun a lot of fun teaching this week so far. To teach Thanksgiving I first told the students about the first Thanksgiving, then I talked about our traditions. Like the Macy's Day Parade and football games and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. I showed them this video:

And then told them about how high school students in America compete in school bands to perform in the parade and showed them this:

A few students noticed that there are kids in this video who look Asian and I heard them talk to each other: "She looks Chinese but is American!"

It made me realize just how amazing our country is. In both of those videos you see people with different hair color, eye color, ethnicity, race- but we are all American.

In China that is not necessarily the case. Since I'm white, they automatically can assume I wasn't born here. Even my hair gives me away. They know I'm a foreigner. Even if I spoke perfect Chinese, I would be a foreigner to them. But you don't make that assumption in America. When I see an Asian person in America, I don't automatically assume they were from an Asian country. They are American.

And I never realized how truly wonderful that was until I stepped out of the country and saw how it's not the case in other countries.

Here's to you, 'Murica

Okay moment over. Moving on to the second part of the lesson......

Now I was thinking, how can I not only get my students interested in this Thanksgiving lesson without food.... (which honestly is something I have to think about for every lesson) but also interested in being thankful....

....and it hit me.

I saw a picture of a centerpiece some one used for their Thanksgiving dinner with branches and hanging from the branches were little pieces of paper that guests wrote things they were thankful for. I was all: Hey! I can do that! I have 500 students! I just need a big enough centerpiece!

Enter: School trees in the middle of campus

This is from Mondays classes, and now that it's almost
Thursday the trees are much more filled.

A few students were helping me hang some papers and
one goes: "Did you ask headmaster?"
And I said: 'Nope."
He said: "So brave, Victoria."
HAAAA

So every class, I give the students paper and they had time to finish the sentence "I am thankful for..." and to decorate it however they wanted. And the sweet precious teenage angels did not disappoint. They did a great job! I took some pictures of different Thankful Notes.

Here they are hanging/reading the notes

This made me feel all nice and warm and fuzzy inside

Who can argue with this thankful note? NO ONE.

I'm pretty sure he didn't mean the 'mis' part

I sense some sarcasm here, my "sweet" student.
On the plus side, her English is obviously well developed
if she can properly use quotation marks in such a snarky manner.

This kinda blew my mind. I don't think I would ever say I'm thankful for a leader
whose reign led to social chaos and mass starvation of my people...
BUT I'm sure your history books don't teach that to your impressionable young minds here.

This kid knows his basketball. A Dr. James Naismith reference?? Most NBA fans don't know that. And he invented basketball.

Aaawww shucks, guys!

I'm thankful you're not a turkey, too.

We watched part of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
if you couldn't tell from the fabulous illustration.

Parents and candy are equal in my eyes, too.

I don't know if I would be thankful for that dog...

Sometimes a few words do the trick.

I still have 5 classes left, and I'm excited to see what fantastic things they can surprise me with! Plus Friday, AYC is coming to observe one of my classes. And word got around that they are observing, and now a bunch of my fellow Longwan teachers want to observe, too.

So it's going to be a nice and full classroom.

And I CAN'T WAIT. I LOVE BEING OBSERVED. I LOVE IT. LOVE. IT.