(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.