Saturday, November 22, 2008

Bringing Halloween to India!


























Indians celebrate many colorful festivals in honor of their Hindu Gods and Goddesses. American holidays, such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and Valentine's Day, are not celebrated in India. Because my students are holiday stir crazy and loooove each and every festival, I decided to bring my favorite American holiday to India: HALLOWEEN!

The project: My Indian students first studied the origin of Halloween and were to choose one person to dress up as for the Halloween party I was throwing. They had to write a 1 page report on the costume they chose to create and had to tell me the significance of the person they chose. It was interesting because while many of my Indian students chose Western superheros (like batman), others decided to honor their Hindu faith by dressing as one of their favorite Gods and Goddesses. I learned just as much from my students as they learned from me during this project. This is what teaching is all about. Teachers and students are a TEAM!

Enjoy the pics of Halloween in India. I had a BLAST with my students and loved the creativity involved with some of their homemade costumes. They were brilliant! By the way, that is me in traditional Indian dress- a sari!

Love,

Ms. Reynolds (Breanna mam)

21 comments:

  1. That's so cool! I love Halloween!!!

    Haley Maurice

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  2. Dear Miss.Bailin,
    Did you dress up for Halloween?
    Wish you were here,
    Emily Woodard

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  3. Those were awesome costumes!
    Hope you have fun,
    Devon R. Gomez

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  4. HI Miss.Bailin,
    How are you? I hope your having fun! I can't wait to see you on Monday Decemeber 1. Can't wait to hear how your trip is going!
    Miss You Very Much,
    Emily Woodard
    P.S. Hi Bree!I wish I could meet you sometime!

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  5. Those halloween costumes were cool.I hope they had a good time dressing up.I hope you have fun in India,
    zach woolf

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  6. Those are awesome costumes! I hope you are having a awesome time! I was just wondering do the people from India Trick Or Treat? Did you dress up too?

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  7. Woah I didn't know that in India they had Halloween!!!!!!!!!

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  8. Devon,

    They DON'T have Halloween! I just decided to have my Indian students celebrate an American holiday. So, this was the first Halloween celebration for all of my students!

    Trent,
    They only wore their costumes to school and did not go trick or treating because others in India do not celebrate the holiday. I did bring Halloween candy to school and passed it out to all the students! They loved it. :)

    Miss Reynolds

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  9. That is so cool how they can dress up like that and i think it would be really cool to reed the papers they wrote if they were in english.Have you did something like that with a different holiday?

    Jordyn Reich

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  10. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays too. I wish our school would let us wear our costumes to school and have some sort of parade through the halls. What is the most common God or Goddess that the kids dress up as? Brandt Hansen

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  11. It's really great that you showed them one of the funest american holidays. It's something they'll never forget.

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  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  13. In Mrs. Probst's class written you a comment.... same with 38 other students.

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  14. all the kids are really cute. it really cool that they are dress up!

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  15. Thats really cool!!!
    its one of my favorite holidays
    its awesome that you showed that

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  16. Great pictures and I bet it was fun. How in the world do elephants get that stuff on them and did you get henna's too. Wow I bet India was amazing.

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  17. India looks like a culture place to hang loose and learn about stuff you really don't see everyday. India may be boring to everybody else but people haven't seen it up close only in pictures and in movies. India is probably a great place to go to but you have to see it before you say it is stupid, boring , or even poor. A lot of people around the world have gone to India and they love it there.

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  18. Jordyn - Miss Reynolds favorite holiday is Diwali. She was able to celebrate it with the Indian people. It is like Christmas and New Years put together times a million. Fireworks are legal and EVERYONE lights them off. It wounds like a war is going on. Look up this holiday and post some cool facts about it for all of us to read. You're such an inquisitive researcher.

    Brandt - They don't dress up for Halloween usually. They don't celebrate it. Miss Reynolds had them celebrate it and she taught them about it.

    Anon - People paint it on the elephants. I have not experienced Henna on me yet.

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  19. Did you get to ride on an elephant when you were in india?

    Leah

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  20. I've never seen an elephant before!They're so big and cute!

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