Chapter Two: In Which We Celebrate Chu-seok

Chu-seok: Korean "Thanksgiving" is a harvest festival. Like American Thanksgiving, it's more about family than actually about the harvest (this is my understanding). There is a lot of ancestor worship involved in Chu-seok. People perform traditional songs and dances; but the best part is really the traditional sports and games. Yesterday, we did Ssirum (Korean wrestling) for PE, and just wait to see what sport we did for today's celebration. Today, the children spent the morning dressed in their traditional clothing and listened to the history of the holiday. Unfortunately, said history was in Korean so I have very minimal understanding what it is actually about. After the picture-fest, we made Songpyeon, which is often called a Korean rice-cake. Don't be fooled, rice-cake is nothing at all like the styrofoam circles we're used to. They're a very chewy dumping filled with peanuts or red bean paste (probably other things too). They were surprisingly tasty! Keep reading to find out the highlight of the day.

(above: Mars class, pre-pre-K, in their clothing. Ariel apparently doesn't realize that when you are wearing a skirt, you probably shouldn't climb on top of a table, who was I to judge?)

More Mars class

Pluto's Sally and Chris being hams

Pluto is one of the true kindergarten classes, generally a lot more demanding than Uranus but still really fun to teach and play with.

Mars again, being super cute. I look like I'm just hugging Woody, but really, I am keeping him from falling backwards and rolling on the floor. He's still one of the cutest kids ever.

I don't really teach Venus, a pre-K class, so I don't really know them.

Same goes for Jupiter.

And Mercury.

Uranus: Now, I'm not going to say I have a favorite class. Really. On that note... Uranus has an amazing mix of characters. Snuggly, prickly, silly, strange. They're fun even when they're frustrating. And I certainly do not have a ton of candid shots of them playing outside while all dressed up and being adorable. Nope, none of that to follow!

I love the way Anna and Ashley hold up their skirts from the dirt, but only when they aren't distracted by something interesting. And, as you know, at age six, everything is interesting.

Like watching me take pictures of them.

Anna came close enough for me to get a real picture of her.

This was the pose that their class did for pictures, I think it is about the harvest.

TOMMY! is surprisingly shy.

What is the Korean equivalent of being a ninja?

Ashley and Ariel, more Uranus.

Candid shots of Pluto and Uranus

POSE! Sam from Pluto

Jessie, Aussie Nicole, Eva, and Christine (our Kindergarten boss)

Doing a cute little Chu-seok song and dance

And in the afternoon:

Uranus' Ariel


And now it's time for the Chu-seok traditional(?) sport:

Arm Wrestling!

Tommy vs. Sally for the title of best kindergarten arm wrestler.
Look at Tommy's struggling face!

And the winners are:

Woody for Mars!

Allen for Pre-K

And Sally for kindergarten! That's right, she kicked the butt of many-a-boy!

Biting to check, yup, solid gold.

The end, for now!
Maybe I'll catch some grown-ups doing Chu-seok things this weekend.