Father's Day

Wednesday, December 5th, is Father's Day in Thailand and also the King's birthday.  I had to do a Father's Day craft with my kids so they would have something to give their dad's on Father's Day.  I found this really cute card online and so for the past few weeks I have been making these with all my elementary classes.  I taught them how to fold the origami shirts, then they wrote notes inside to their dads and decorated the shirts.  We also drew ties, decorated them, cut them out and glued them on to the shirts.  Here are some examples of the shirts my students made :)

Wednesday we got the day off of school, but on Tuesday we had a Father's Day ceremony.  We all gathered in the cafeteria where there were speeches made by the administration, a dad, and some students, a Thai dance, and some music.  Afterwords, the fathers of the elementary students went with their children and spent an hour in their classroom.  It was a nice event :)

A Christmas-y GES!

So as I mentioned in my last post, the day after Thanksgiving was a teacher workday so we all gathered and decorated GES.  There were a few different groups to be part of and at the end of a few hours, the school looked great!  One group hung the garland and bows around the cafeteria, which looks so good!

I was in charge of decorating the bulletin boards so I had planned out what each bulletin board would look like and got all the materials ready to be put up.  I thought they came out really nice (and I must give credit to all the teachers that put them up for me - they did a great job and made them even better than I had planned)!  I am especially proud of the nativity scene- I think it looks so great!

p.s.  It is a really strange experience to decorate for Christmas while sweating because it's 95 degrees!  Hard to believe it really is Christmas when it feels like July but I'm trying!

Mexican restaurant + pizza+ milkshake + massage + art room buffet = one of a kind Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving was definitely different than any other Thanksgiving I have ever experienced.  In fact, it was hard for me to even remember it was Thanksgiving (I was skyping a friend earlier that week and was puzzled at why she was going to her parents house on Thursday and Friday (why take those two days off and not just wait for the weekend).  Then it hit me - it's Thanksgiving!).  

Anyway, we had school on Thursday but in the evening I went with my two friends Lauren and Sarah to Que Pasa, a Mexican restaurant that has pretty much any kind of food you could want.  Even though they are a Mexican restaurant they make really good pizza!  So I got pizza and a milkshake to celebrate Thanksgiving.  My friends, being the wonderful elementary teachers that they are, even made and wore Thanksgiving attire - a pilgrim hat and an Indian headdress.  We definitely got some weird looks from the waitresses but it was fun.  Our school administrators/bosses also showed up at the restaurant and paid for our meal without telling us (we only found out when we tried to pay and the waitresses were laughing and telling us it was free!).  We felt really blessed and it made me want to be better about doing random acts of kindness - it certainly makes an impact and blesses others!

After dinner we went and got massages, which one of my friends back home said we should incorporate into Thanksgivings in America.  I agree - they are a great way to relax and they certainly make you thankful!  

On Friday there was a teacher workday, so no kids, but we still came to school to work.  We ended up decorating the school for Christmas (more on that in my next post).  After working during the day, all the teachers and their families gathered in my art room for a big Thanksgiving feast.  We each brought a dish to share and gathered around my tables and chairs to share a Thanksgiving meal together.  It was a really nice time of fellowship and yummy traditional Thanksgiving food.  Not quite the homey setting I'm used to but I tried to remove the paint and crayon smell as much as possible :)

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well :)