Merry Christmas from Santa Olaya!

We´ve created a short video to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and to ring in the New Year. We hope that you all have a wonderful time with your family during the holidays and that the New Year brings you many good things. We´ll see you in 2014! Happy Holidays from Daron and Carmen!

Thanksgiving Turkey!!

Today we celebrated Daron´s favourite holiday--Thanksgiving Day! The fourth thursday of November is a very important day in the United States and Canada. It is a day when families gather to eat traditional food together to celebrate autumn and the history of America.

Typical foods of Thanksgiving day include turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and stuffing. Daron explained the tradition to 5th course and showed some photos of past Thanksgivings. Afterwards, each student decorated a paper feather and wrote one thing they are thankful for. Each of these feathers were put together to create one Thanksgiving turkey!

Have a look at the pictures below! It was very fun! 

HALLOWEEN 2013

These are the activities we enjoyed this Halloween 2013

• Scary Stories

• Dancing Thriller

• Halloween Traets

• Apple Bobbing

• Trick or Traet
• IV Carving Contest 
• Carving Contest Winners

And this is how an American had enjoyed it

Daron created a Halloween powerpoint to show 5th and 6th course. She brought lots of photos to show previous Halloween costumes and festivities. Coming from America, Daron has been celebrating Halloween every year since she was a child. It is very important in her country so it was fun to see some of her old costumes!

TRICK OR TREAT

                                                                                                                                

 Trick or treat

Smell my feet

Give me something

good to eat

If you don´t

I´ll pull down your underwear

APPLE BOBBING

To finish the Halloween festivities, we played a traditional game called ¨Bobbing for Apples.¨ In a bin filled with water you place a few apples to float. Each student had to try to catch an apple in their mouth without using their hands. It is more difficult than you think! It was pretty messy but lots of fun!!

HALLOWEEN TREATS

• Mandarine pumpkin
• Banana Ghost
• Ghost Hands

Daron helped our group make three healthy halloween treats. Below are the recipes if you would like to make them yourself at home! Watch the video for step by step instructions!

Banana Ghosts

 Ingredients:
1/2 Banana
3 Chocolate candies
1. Peel banana and cut in half
2. Use two small chocolate pieces for two eyes and one for the mouth

 Mandarin Pumpkins

 Ingredients:
1 mandarin
1inch piece of asparagus
1. Peel mandarin
2. Slightly separate the tops of the mandarin pieces
3. Place asparagus piece in the top center hole as a stalk

Witch Hand Gloves 

Ingredients:
1 empty plastic glove
1 bag microwave popcorn
Ribbon
Red Felt-tip
1. Using the microwave, pop the bag of popcorn
2. Fill the plastic glove with a large handful of the popped popcorn
3. Tie the end of the glove tightly with ribbon
4. Use the felt-tip to color nails on each of the fingers

SCARY STORIES

To bring some Halloween fright, Daron read the scary story ¨Bloody Mary.¨ This is the story of an old woman who steals children and later places a curse on the whole town. The students of 5th and 6th course really enjoyed it!


Next, we watched a Simpson´s episode that follows the famous story of ¨The Raven¨ by Edgar Allen Poe. It´s the story of a man who it turned crazy by a raven who has inhabited his house. Check out the video!

THRILLER

This is Daron´s favourite Halloween video and song. Have a look below! But beware, it´s a bit scary!!

And this is how we learnt how to dance Thriller. Daron showed us a few of her favourite dance moves from the video. It was really fun!

HALLOWEEN STORY

You can create your own Halloween tale clicking on the following image:

SURPRISE ME

Have you carved your pumpkin yet? What kind of face did you give it? Spooky? Silly? Happy? Leave us a comment and let us know!

GREETINGS

Click on the image to hear the bat´s Halloween greeting

CARVING

Fancy some Pumpking carving?

halloween-pumpkin-decor

You can also carve your pumpkin here

HALLOWEEN IS COMING

Next week is a very exciting week here at Santa Olaya. It happens to be my favorite holiday--Halloween! We have prepared some fun and spooky activities to celebrate! Keep checking the blog to see all that we are doing. Happy Halloween!!

DARON

To introduce my self to year 5, I prepared a PowerPoint presentation and explained a bit about my life back in the United States.
First, I began explaining how the United States is organized and what part of the country I am from. Then, I talked a bit about my home state, Oregon, and showed pictures of what the area looks like. I talked a bit about my family, pets, and hobbies in order to give them a sense of who I am and what my life is like back home. You can have a look at my presentation and also some pictures that were taken while I was presenting! Afterwards, the students in year 5 had to complete a worksheet filling in blanks about what I had said. They also had to ask a few questions of their own!
All in all, it was a very fun class!



Ficha para primer y segundo ciclo aquí
Ficha para Infantil aquí

SURPRISE!

Today in year 5, I was surprised with a halloween song the students had prepared! It´s called "The Skeleton Dance" and is about all the bones in the body. Have a look! I thought it was very entertaining and a very special surprise!

HELLO

Hello! My name is Daron and I am from Oregon in the United States. I am here working for the school year as an english language assistant at C.P. Santa Olaya. I recently graduated from university and this will be my second year teaching english in Spain. My hobbies include cooking, playing the guitar, knitting, hiking, and listening to music. I love working with children and am very excited for this year in Gijón. It´s nice to meet you!!