Scary Stories!!

Today was Day 1 of 2 of Midterm testing! It went extremely smoothly, considering the students' high level of stress and anxiety about being in a classroom for two hours... :) The middle schoolers just took their state test, so they didn't take a midterm at the academy. Darren told me to come up with a topic to talk about with the middle school students; something that would be interesting and allow them to practice their speaking. I chose the topic of Halloween. :)

The middle school class I had today is the top-speaking class in the academy. Their English is incredible, and it's always fun to be really creative with these students. We started off class by brainstorming all the words we could think of that were related to Halloween. We came up with a pretty good list. We had some funny moments when they couldn't think of the English words for what I was asking.

Me: "What is it called when children go to different houses and collect candy?"
Joy: "Visit?"
Ivy: "Teachuh!! First you visit, then you say to them, 'gimme your candy!'...please."
Me: "Trick-or-treating!"
Joy: "No, I don't think so." :)

After we made our list, I told them I had a scary story to read to them. This class LOVES scary stories and scary movies. To get us in the Halloween mood, James turned all the lights off, but one, so it would be really dark. I started reading the story, and all the students were really drawn in...I went to turn the page and my binder clip snapped off and went flying. The students were really startled, so they screamed. Then I screamed because they screamed! It was hilarious. Darren came down the hallway and into the classroom. He was looking around at how dark it was, and I said, "We turned the lights off because we're reading a scary story." Darren just laughed and left.

After the story was over, I asked the students to write their own scary stories to share. They were really creative and came up with some good ones. It was great watching them present at the end of class. They imitated me, which was a lot of fun. (When I was reading the scary story at the beginning, I was really animated and was changing my voice a lot.) The students picked up on that and did the same thing when they read their own stories. This class was the perfect end to my day.

The weather here is so wonderful! Fall has officially arrived, and nighttimes are SO NUMB!! I still sleep with my windows open, but I bury myself under my covers to keep warm. I wore one of my snow boots to school the other day-I just love this weather so much! I found out from one of the pastors at my church that they celebrate Thanksgiving at the church every year. They buy about 25 turkeys and have lots of different sides. I can't wait! I know it won't be like my Thanksgiving normally is, but at least we'll be having a big celebration together :)