Kindergarten Celebrations

Well, while I've been busy not blogging, my time has been fully occupied in K2. It seems the celebrations have been one after the other for the last month, and so I wanted to share some of what I've been up to at school...

The most recent celebration was for the Muslim holiday last week, Eid al Adha. It's probably the biggest Muslim holiday of the year (think the Christmas of Islam), so the kids had the whole week off, and I had a 5 day weekend (only having to work two days... quite nice actually). The Thursday before break we had two Mom's from the class come in and present Eid. The kids learned about Muslim prayers, the Hajj, and the Festival of Sacrifice. Interesting and informative for all, and I got to take home lots of Arabic sweets, so what could be better?

The week before Eid was the Hindu Festival of Lights, Diwali. A Mom also came in to present that, and the kids had a great time learning all about it and doing some fun crafts and activities...

Diwali Table Centerpiece. The fresh flowers made our whole classroom smell amazing, and reminded me a lot of a Hawaiian lei.

Diwali chalk Rangolis, a traditional decoration for the festival. And the kids had fun making them on the sidewalk.

Then after all the activities and crafts were done, the Mom who came in demonstrated the Hindu blessings that are bestowed on Diwali. First she moved the incense around my head three times, then marked my forehead with a dab of saffron water and rice, threw rice over my head, and had me eat an Indian sweet.

Finally, I got a flower garland tied on my wrist. It was a really fun and interesting experience.

And the week before Diwali was, of course, Halloween. I wasn't feeling very inspired on the costume front, so took the easy way out and wore the jack-o-lantern costume that I found in the storage room at school...

And so did my teacher...

The Halloween party consisted of a parade with all the K2's (which totally brought me back to the Halloween Parades we used to have at my elementary school growing up), a couple of crafts, and then capped off with a game of "Mummify Your Teachers"...

So the kids all took turns wrapping me and my teacher up in toilet paper as fast as they could. And because our kids are all 5 and couldn't really reach our shoulders and heads, the Mom's helped finish the job.

And some got a little carried away.

The finished product. The kids thought it was absolutely hilarious.

I love K2. Now we are gearing up for yet another celebration next week for Thanksgiving. The fun just never stops in Kindergarten.