Frist I would like to thank Don Omar and the Romanian group “Guess Who” for keeping the students dancing all night long. If I had known I only needed two songs to keep the students entertained I wouldn’t have stayed up so late downloading top pop songs for the Halloween Party! Note to self: always have accessible the songs “Danza Kudulo” and “Tot Mai Sus”.
Since Halloween is not celebrated in Romania, I had a very difficult time finding decorations for the party. I searched many stores in Bucharest and Targu Jiu and found the bare minimum. I bought anything that was orange and black in hopes that my creativity side would save me. I was excited when I finally found black balloons however I was disappointed to realize ,after inflating them, that they were actually dark purple! But I don’t think anyone noticed. At this point all I had was color tissue paper, cardboard paper, bottles of water, tons of black garbage bags, old clothes, white and red Christmas lights, leaves students collected and 24hours to put it all together.
On Thursday, students worked with me on decorations…they were really excited to make the scarecrows and tombstones….however they were having a hard time concentrating on one activity because every time I introduced one more task they dropped what they were doing to give me a hand. On Friday, we started decorating the school’s gym which hasn’t been renovated since it was built (or so it seemed), it was the perfect setting for a Halloween party because it had all the things I could not find at the store: spider webs, spooky closets, dim lights and squeaky doors-floor. Four hours later and with the help of another English teacher and many students, the decorating was done.
Students started to arrive at 4pm and before we knew it we had between 90-100 students plus parents in the gym! During the party, we had several competitions like; scariest costume, most creative costume, most creative Jack O’Lantern, mummy making, and spookiest cake. We had 30 Jack O’lanterns and the majority of the students dressed up. The breakdancing group of Novaci’s High School also came and performed for the students. We included a Romanian game called “Tombola”, where every student brought something from home (any item like a notebook, picture frame, toys) and they can exchange it with something a different student brought. We used the game to raise money for the school’s English club. The cost to participate in the game was $2Lei and we raised over $150Lei. We also sold lemonade which brought in $88Lei :). All money raised will be used for students’ activities associated with the English club.
Like I said before, Don Omar and Guess Who songs saved me! Students kept asking me to play the same two songs over and over again….I’m glad I actually like these artist and didn’t mind, it kept them dancing.
After the party, the parents asked me to help put together the Christmas party. Maybe I’ll dress up as Santa….maybe I’ll have to think this one out before announcing it to the students.
Enjoy the pictures.