Thanksgiving

(I don't actually have pictures of any of this. Hopefully I can get them from people who brought cameras)

Thanksgiving at our school was not nearly as big as Halloween was. We've been doing Thanksgiving themed activities for a few weeks, and we put up a few decorations right at the entrance of our school, but that was it (no intense haunted house or big performance, thank goodness). One of the days this week, my kids went on a field trip to the post office so I spent the morning putting up a paper thankfulness tree. We had paper leaves that people could write things they were thankful for on and put up on the tree.

Thanksgiving day itself (I suppose that is today) was Parents' day, so the parents of all the kids came and watched class. It wasn't as bad as I had feared. Some of the kids actually behaved better with their parents there, and while my lesson wasn't amazing, it wasn't a disaster either. I had met some of the parents before, but it was fun to meet a few more of them.

We (the 15 girls in my ILP group) had planned on having a potluck Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday evening. This happened to coincide with the birthday of one of our Chinese friends (There is a tea and smoothie shop down the street from us that we like to go hang out at, and we've made friends with all the owners and workers), so we ended up having our thanksgiving potluck at the tea shop. It was really fun. We all brought the stuff we had made to the little round tables that the tea shop has set out on the sidewalk and sat on stools and had Thanksgiving together with everyone. I was surprised at all the things we managed to make. We didn't have any turkey, but we did have mashed potatoes (the powdered kind) and gravy, stuffing, pumpking pudding, and green jello, along with other things. It actually felt sort of like Thanksgiving, albeit outside and in China and with fish balls on the side. Then, of course, we had birthday cake afterwards. I was sufficiently full by the end.