Kam Mul school play

Oct. 23, 2012.

or I guess maybe a mini production rather...

fourth graders.

So, Monday I don't teach (when do I find out.. oh after my first graders have been there 20 minutes - they get pulled out and then no one else shows up!) Turns out they were all practicing for a school play that was happening on Tuesday. (so I didn't teach Tuesday either)...

kindergartners. :)

Anyway, the play started around 9 am. I get to the gym and a lot of parents are there and are all dressed up in elaborate costumes -- looking identical to all their classmates. The show lasts for a couple of hours. They did everything from singing to dancing to drumming to talent show to acting out Cinderella, which was the only part I could fully understand since they did it in English. Each grade came out on stage twice I believe -- each time in a whole new outfit. I wonder how they got all the costumes? or if they reuse them? Who really knows.

(just a cute little video of the cute little kindergartners :)

Silly Billy as the evil Step Mother.

The cutest was when the little kids did Korean Pop (a.k.a. K-Pop) style dancing. They got out there and did a bunch of pop-y little dance moves. There were a couple of skits, one sort of about Christmas maybe.. I think there was a Santa involved. The 2nd and 3rd graders played some cross between a flute and a recorder. Some more dancing and talking and acting. I really had no idea what to expect and had no idea it was going to last for hours!! Through out I would gaze about the room and start photographing the crowd.... so many cute little kids :) In the middle of the show a few families got up and did a talent show type performance. They sang and danced and then one of them won. No idea what was going on. The 3rd graders did Cinderella (like mentioned above). It was all in English and they did such a great job. I understood everything (or well at least most of it). Which is guess isn't too hard since I know the story! My favorite was that my student Billy (he's one of my better students and I have nicknamed him Silly Billy) was the step mother. Yup, he played a girl. He wore a super long curly brown wig -- quite funny but also cute! It ended with a drumming/percussion performance by the 4th, 5th and 6th graders. Come to find out they had been practicing for this production for a month or two... hints why I had been hearing drumming, and recorders being practiced quite often - It all made sense now!

the drummers..

flute/recorder things.

Overall, I was very impressed! It really was a production! I didn't have a hand in it what-so-ever. I don't know if that is because they hate me or if it's because they didn't want to bother me with such a task. However, I am happy I was able to be there for it and watch it, photograph and video tape it!

(relay race) 3rd grader - Sarah.

After the production was lunch. Then we all went back to the gym and played games, relay races, and watch a guy do some magic tricks and light some things on fire. He was alright, I don't think Korean's quite understand magic tricks. I love magic but here it's just really bad. You can see what they are doing most of the time! But all in all it was a great afternoon. I got to speak with a lady (who baby is pictured to the right - asked 'how old is he?' -- oh 'SHE is 6 months.' I felt like an idiot!) who's husband is from the states. So her English was really good! I got to participate in tug-of-war and was a question for a trivia game. This is how that went down..... 'blah blah korean korean korean korean Klistin (how they say my name) korean California.' I was like what is going on. So I had to stand up and then they all ran around and picked if it was true or false. Then they asked me 'where are you from?' I said Iowa. So it was false. I about had a heart attack when they said my name though, had no idea what was going on. Thank goodness it was just about where I was from!

my mentor teacher holding the cloth tube thing all the kids and parents had to crawl through.

the kids/parents had to try to pop the balloon by hugging each other. that was pretty entertaining.

they had the kindergartners run across
this stretched out cloth while the rest of the
school kids and parents held on to it.

Someone asked me if we had something similar. I said um, no but kind of. I think it was almost a cross between our Christmas play and then a PTO carnival. That's about the closest I can come to, but it was all in one day -- on a Tuesday. It was surprising to see how many parents cold make it. Maybe they took off work? Who really knows. It was fun to be a part of, but man that was almost too many events for me in one day and I only photographed it!