Crazy Hair Day

Every Friday is Theme day at our Preschool.  A few days back, we had "Crazy Hair Day"  We spent most of the morning doing our hair in crazy dos and helping those students whom hadn't done their hair already, fancy it up.  It was an exciting day in the preschool.  Many parents went all out, putting flowers, rice, ribbons, color spray and pipe cleaners to adorn their children's hair. Most of the kids had a blast.  Top on the other hand was non to thrilled too be participating in this childish endeavor. I swear he is like a grandpa in a four year old's body.  "Why are you doing this to me?" Is what he's thinking right now.  "Play your silly games if you must, but don't expect me to enjoy myself!"

Mudfest 2011 in pictures

 Mud Fest 2011 was fantastic, it was also MONTHS ago, as in at the BEGINNING of the summer.  But I found this in my drafts and although I put up the Mudfest video post I didn't put up pictures!! Oops!  Well... no worries, picnik is here to save the day once more.

Moother goose

Somedays I feel like mothergoose with little duckling following behind me.  Not sure why??

I'm a yogini

"Can you teach yoga?" my manager asked me one day.

"uhhh," I stuttered

"I want the kids to learn yoga, and the president wont pay for a yoga instructor." she said

"I guess." I acquiesced.

I actually do yoga videos about once a week along with my other work outs.  So I'm quite familiar with the moves.  But I started looking up kids yoga, and its quite different to the calm and peaceful yoga that is ususally taught to kids.  Basically, all of the moves are active rather than static, and many of the positions are given animal names.  I also have the kids make the nosies of the animals as they follow along. They LOVE yoga because basically, they love pretending to be animals.  Its very cute.

Pre-school clips

A while a go our preschool was videoed for an advertisement for the website. This is that preschool video.  It's adorable.  The first class is mine.  I'm super proud of my kids, but not of my hair in this video.  Don't look at it!  Hope you enjoy!

Take more pictures

Part of being a teacher at our preschool is being a photographer.  The children need their pictures taken regularly as proof that their being taught.  So on each field trip, I take my camera and dutifully take as many pictures of the kids as I can while still trying to answer their questions, hold their hands, and take them to the bathroom. Recently we were told, that we don't take enough pictures.  Not in quantity really, but that we also needed to take pictures during the week of the kids doing mundane things like studying etc. 
"Are you serious?" I asked my co-teacher.  "I have just uploaded 2000 photos to my kodak file.  Seriously, how many pictures do the parents need?"

So one day as we were playing outside under the bridge, the kids and I engaged in a funny game.  Take pictures wearing teacher Vanessa's sunglasses.  One of the kids wanted to wear my sunglasses, and we thought it was so funny we took their pictures.  They all started yelling out at that point, "I want to, I want to..."  So we had them line up for their picture with my sunglasses.  They were so cute with my movie-star sunglasses on their tiny faces.

"This is my home"

This week, our class size has grown from 9 to 11 students.  Two may seem like a small number, but I can definitely feel a difference.  We're struggling to integrate everyone into the routine.  However before this addition, our newest student was "four year old" Aden.   Aden came to us about three months late.  It was obvious from the start that Aden had NEVER been to preschool.  He was a wild child, often hitting other students, playing during circle time, and never helping to clean up during "clean up time." Aden was by far our most difficult child.  He didn't ever do his work unless one of us sat with him the entire time coaching him step by step, which makes helping the rest of the children do with their work extremely trying.  His focus lasted as long as a gold fish's memory; two seconds.

His adorable face with two deep dimples was quite endearing however.  And although he often hit other classmates, he'd always freely admit to it, and would apologize with such candor and empathy in his eyes, even reaching out to touch the other student. It made my heart melt the first few times I saw it.  Now, I'm just tired of the words, "Aden hit me!"

But today, Aden did something else to tug at those heart strings; he cried when it was time to go home.  His aunt told us that he's been doing it nearly every day.  He insisted that he wanted to stay at preschool.  When teacher Cindy said, "But Aden, it's time to go home now." he exclaimed adamantly in Korean, "This is my home!"

I'd like to take all the credit for this outburst, but I realize that it most likely has more to do with there being other children to play with than with my marvelous teaching ability. But I'd like to think at least, that I create a fun and safe environment for the children to learn and play in.  And that's enough to make my day. That one of my students, despite, how much we scold him, still wants to be at school with us.  These kids just might make leaving Korea more difficult than I bargained for.

Strange markings

It began at the start of summer, when the layers of clothing began to shed. When we moved from five layers to four, to three to two, and now, at the height of summer, the lightest material passable for appropriate for work clothing.  I noticed one of my students had strange markings on her shoulder. I began counting, one dot, two, three. There were 18 dots in total.  Two square boxes of 9 dots a piece. I began to inspect all of my children. Almost everyone of them had it.
"What are these markings?" I asked my Korean co-workers.
It was explained, that these markings were a new form of a vaccination.  Previous to this currently used vaccination, the out-dated one, left a scar on the shoulder.  This newer vaccination was created to avoid that permanent scarring.  It is said, that the markings will fade with years.
Now, I was even more confused.  Where was my scar I wondered? I'd had all my shots as a child, and even more shots before I left for traveling the world. My family were not one of the anti-vaccine families, so why was it that all of my international friends had scars on their arms, and I didn't nor did any of my American friends. But no one could tell me even what vaccine it was, that is until recently. I follow a blog called, Ask a Korean.
Basically, people write him their questions and he answers them.  Very useful site for questions regarding Korean culture.  He explained, that this vaccine is the BCG vaccine, and for some reason Americans do not receive it.
Evidently, we are one out of two countries in the world that do not recommend it for children. (The Netherlands is the other) Tuberculosis (TB)  kills more people in the world than any other infection. Currently, it infects 1.6 billion people, about one-third of the world's population.  But the vaccine, that is used, does not protect against the kind that is the true killer, which is the millary TB. The TB vaccine is good at protecting against the severe form of disease found in young children (called "miliary" TB), but not as good at protecting against the lung infection commonly found in adolescents and adults. Because miliary TB is very uncommon in the United States, we do not use the TB vaccine. (Info found here)

  So, my question has been answered. And now, if you made it to the end of this spiel, you are more educated, that when you clicked open my page.  Aren't you glad you visited today?

Mongolian spots

Not a pic of Richard

We all have accidents. My preschool children, although mostly potty trained, have accidents more often than I would like.  Once while changing Richard, I noticed strange splotchy blue marks on his behind.  Cindy explained that these spots, which are found on nearly 90-95% of Asian children, are called Mongolian spots, and that they disappear later in life.  She also said that when Asians first started immigrating to America, doctors suspected abuse after seeing these markings, not understanding that the marks were birthmarks, and not bruises.
Now that I know what they are, I've been looking for them and its true, nearly every baby I've seen has these markings. The markings are most common on the behind, but they also occur on the back. Our co-worker's baby, even has one on her shoulder.  Wikipedia explains, "It results from the entrapment of melanocytes in the lower half to two-thirds of the dermis during their migration from the neural crest to the epidermis during embryonic development"  Basically, its just some type of discoloration of the skin that occurs during development in the womb and is corrected as the child develops further.  Living in a foreign country is quiet intriguing. You never know what our going to learn next.

Ancedotes of preschool 3

We've been teaching illnesses recently in my afternoon class.  They learned stomach ache, fever, cough, cold, and rash. The picture for the rash, however, was a bit deceiving, and confusing. The picture shows a child with red dots covering her face. I think they were demonstrating chickenpox but what it actually resembles is acne.  We were talking about each of the illness, and as we came upon, "rash" one of the kids observantly said,
"Teacher you have a rash"
Shaking my head, slightly embarrassed, I explained that the red dots on my face were pimples, which are different from a rash.   "Rashes itch, pimples are just red dots that you get when your older."  I didn't even have that many, maybe two or three, but oh, are kids observant.  Almost every time I have a new pimple, one of the children asks me about it.  "Teacher, what's that?" they ask innocently, not knowing that they are rubbing salt into my wounded self-image.


It's summertime.  In Korea, the tale tell signs of summer is the heat, which isn't anywhere near the heat index in Texas, the humidity, which is high, maybe even sometimes higher than San Antonio, and the insects. (I wrote two posts last year about those nefarious bugs, here and here)  These insects, seeking refuge from the great outdoors, or maybe the many cruel Korean middle school children who try take them apart limp by limb, for some reason or another, choose to make their home in our bathroom.  At first, we didn't understand why the kids would wiggling and shaking, doing the pee pee dance, were refusing to go to the bathroom.  Sometimes, they would even have their pants down, as they came back into the classroom, whining. Once, a student in our afternoon class, who is normally quite garrulous, refused to not only answer a question but repeat anything I said.  He then refused to answer, "what's wrong Edward?" We finally got out of him that his stomach hurt.  Later, we found out, that his stomach hurt because he refused to go to the bathroom to poo, as he was afraid of the bugs.

Cindy, my co-teacher, is afraid of all bugs, even moths and butterflies, albeit massive bird sized moths and butterflies, but harmless critters never-the-less.  So that makes me the designated bug catcher. I don't like to kill animals, unless it's likely to harm me.  However, I've had difficulty catching spiders without killing them, as I'm always afraid they might escape and start crawling on me. 
The kids have, out of necessity, have learned the word "bug," a word they use nearly everyday now, when its time to use the restroom.  What I've found, even more cute however is when they tell me,
"Teacher, spiderman, bathroom!"

"Spiderman is in the bathroom?" I ask jokingly. They know who Spiderman is, but haven't learned the word spider on its own.  I'm loving summer, but I'll be glad when I no longer have to fend off the insect invaders so that my kids don't pee in their pants!

Ancedotes from preschool 2

So last Ancedotes from preschool I talked about my little girl Elise, however, the story doesn't end there.  Elise is a four year old (in Korean age) which means she is between two and three; my guess is that she is three years old.  But she is quite mature for her young years, and is by far one of the superior colorers in the class. She is quite adept at staying in the lines, and even color coordinating.  She is reticent, and slow to speak, but lately she has been coming into her English voice with confidence.  After lunch, which is brought to our classroom, I make their toothbrushes.  That is, I put the toothpaste on their toothbrushes to avoid a calamitous sticky disarray that would send me into a cringing, twitching state liable for institutionalism. (I have to say, I'm admittedly, not a neat person, but messy toothpaste is a pet peeve of mine)  And when I first entered preschool, the children raced after lunch to brush their teeth, and found it hilarious to put not only their own toothpaste messily on their toothbrush but to make a hodgepodge of everyone's toothpaste on their own one toothbrush, making what they called rainbow toothpaste.  After a few eye twiches, I put a stop to that quickly.  I digress however...  Where were we?  Awww yes, Elise.  One day, Elise, who hasn't spoken hardly any English outside of circle time suddenly calls out to me,
"Come here!" Two words I haven't heard her speak before. I'm already impressed, but she's just gotten started. She leads me to where I have made up the toothbrushes, and points to one particular toothbrush, Louis's.
"Louis isn't here." she tells me.  I stare at her dumbfounded. Not only had she been observant enough to remember which cup and toothbrush was Louis's, but she had just formed a perfect sentence, with a negative verb and all.  She didn't say, "Louis not here," which would have been impressive on its own, but she used "isn't."  Huge! Colossal! I had to restrain myself from picking her up and twirling her around. My throat constricted, and my heart pounded with pride like a mother just hearing her baby speak its first word.  My children were learning. They were actually not only understanding but on the cusp of beginning to speak English in sentences.

One finale Elise story...(watch her little video here)

As you know, our preschool goes on field trips.  One Friday, we made our way to a beautiful wildflower garden. We picnicked under the shade of  sycamore trees. (I don't even know what sycamore trees are, but it sounded nicer than just saying trees :) )  Lunches consisted of the snacks the children brought, which ranged from chips, packaged goods, candy and fruit, and kimbap which is brought by the school (Korean style sushi roll).  One ingredient in the rolls is a yellow radish.  I don't like radish.  I don't like radish in any form, yellow or no so I meticulously pick it out. On seeing this Elise picked up my radish to hand me, thinking that it has fallen out.  I tell her "Thank you," but explain to her that I'd taken it out because I didn't like radish. Minutes later, Elise handed me a kimbap, an action that's sweet in itself.  However, that she handed me food without my asking is thoughtful in itself, but what really got to me, was that she'd been considerate enough to take out the radish. This is a three year old folks.  A three year old who thought beyond her own needs and desires to unselfishly feed her teacher. I nearly cried. Seriously, I held back tears as she handed me that seaweed rice roll missing the disgusting radish.  Elise has taken my heart and run away with it, and its all I can do to keep up with her.  I only hope that she remains small enough for me to pack in my suitcase when I come home.

Anecdotes from preschool

I'm having fun with my preschoolers.  Their at the adorable age of innocence, where everything that comes from your mouth is as good as gold.  They have yet to test out rebellion, and believe that the most troublesome aspect of the world is that their friends don't share with them.  Teaching  the "five year old class" has been an entirely different experience than when I substituted for the "7 year old class" last year.  It hasn't been better or worse, just substantially different considering the children's maturity levels. One great aspect about teaching in Korea, as opposed to a Western country, is the fact that Korea has not taken up law suits so avidly as other countries.  I don't have a fear of being called a pedophile for hugging my children, or showing them affection.  In fact, that is part of my job description, giving affection to the children, hugging them, playing with them, and kissing their boo boos.  Hopefully, if I can remember, I will continue writing this as a series relaying stories about my children.

We had this student Ashton for a while.  He was four (Korean age) with floppy black hair, pants that were always falling off him and with a face as sweet as candy.  But Ashton, I'm afraid, did not make it on our class for longer than a month.  The poor thing could not understand us. I'm not sure he would have understood us if we'd been speaking Korean. He didn't comprehend school.  He didn't grasp sitting still in circle time or repeating words and phrases.  I thought at the very least he'd understand coloring, but even that seemed to boggle his poor little mind. We'd place a coloring sheet before him, place a coloring pencil in his hand, assist him in coloring for the first few seconds, and leave him to it, but he'd only stare at us, bewildered. He literally would gaze at us with a blankness only found on white paper holding his color pencil in his hand for ten minutes. I don't know if he wouldn't color, or if he really didn't get the concept, but either way, in order for any of Ashton's work to be completed, Cindy and I would have to complete it ourselves, placing Ashton's hand in ours, as we colored, or drew lines to the correct pictures for Ashton, as he stared at us as if we were strange creatures from his dreams.  After a month of this, his mother and father determined that Ashton wasn't ready for school yet.  We whole-heatedly agreed.

  I have an adorable class.  Really, I'm quite lucky to have such angelic children.  And I have to say, I particularly like the girls, although the boys quite frequently melt my heart  as well. One of my little girls names is Elise. She's an adorable creature that might have been a kangaroo in a previous life time. She's constantly hopping around, her arms bent like short stubby kangaroo's, singing her own little tunes.  She's also quite particular about dirt and mess.  I imagine her mother is quite tidy. She refuses to go into the bathroom if there is anything out of the ordinary such as water on the floor, or dirt.  She will come to fetch me, if the bathroom is unacceptable to her standards, and will hold her pee, until it has been cleaned up.

Stay tuned for more anecdotes from preschool.

When all else fails

I have put little time into the blog lately as anyone can see from the glaring lack of posts this month. However, when all else fails, pictures of my adorable students can always suffice as an adequate filler until I sit down and actually take time to write something other than, "isn't he the cutest thing you've ever seen." 

Friday was a busy fun day in the land of the (korean age) five year old class.  We played handbells, which was ULTRA confusing, as the handbell colors were the wrong color for the Wii handbell game.  "Jinu- your bell is red, but you need to ring when you see the green handbell, got it, not the red one." "No, jearom, your white, not green." 
When your kids are just starting to learn their colors, and the colors don't match the screen, you can be sure that chaos will rein, and the urge to ring the hand bell at any moment in time just for the fun of it, will be the main chorus of music.  Maybe to some it qualifies as music, but in my world, it does not.

After handbells, we made a fun project.
What one needs to make the most awesome sucker person!
1. paper cup
2. sucker
3. googly eyes
4. q-tips
5. pipe cleaner.
6. markers
7. sissors
Now, when I say "we" made the sucker people, I mean that the kids sit there, while Cindy and I make their activity.  Why? Well, for starters they couldn't hot glue the googly eyes, nor the pipe cleaner hair on.  I mean I guess technically they could, but that probably woldn't be a very responsible move. Nor could they poke holes in their cups to stick the suckers in the top to act as the head or the q-tips in on the sides for the arms. 
What could they do? They picked the color of their cup, in English mind you!  They picked the color of their sucker and the color of the hair.  They were also able to color the cup with their markers, while Cindy and I furiously ran around trying to glue and poke everyone's sucker people to satisfaction.

In the end, I think everyone was happy with their final project.

Preschool pics

Top (the boy in the picture)  hates art class. Most children love coloring, Top just finds it tiring.  Holding a coloring pencil and using ii is entirely too much work.  This strawberry was actually drawn by my co-teacher.

The students have Chinese class once a week.  They can now say "hello" in three languages :)

Friday afternoons are "special classes" . Last Friday was "health check." We checked their eyes, height and weight.  Two of the boys refused.

You can see my lovely house shoes here :)

We're trying to learn our colors. Its slow going.

Darling Elise really loves art class.  Isn't her picture lovely.

Richard- the angry cryer is at the top of the slide. This slide is the favorite activity of the kids.

This activity involves matching things of the same color.

Aram is the little girl who loves to wave and smile.  She is adorable.

My first week in preschool

I've officially moved to the dark side, or the light side depending on how you view working in the preschool. Last year, when I was asked to substitute I was extremely hesitant.  Cleaning up messes, wiping faces, dealing with "he hit me" all day long and not having interactions with the other teachers throughout the day didn't seem very appealing.  However all of that changed once I began my temporary service.  The children with their hugs, smiles, enthusiasm and love boggled my mind.  I loved walking into a classroom where the students were thrilled to see me, and weren't afraid to express their enthusiasm in the form of a full body hug. Seeing the daily growth in their language abilities was incredibly encouraging as an educator.  At the end of my time with my class, I was terribly sad to say our fretful good-byes. We'd become attached.  I told the preschool director that when I returned I would consider a position in preschool depending on the class size, and prep time alloted. Last year I taught the (korean age) 7 year class, children who had been learning English already for at least one year.  This year, however, I was placed (by choice) with the (korean age) 5 year old class. Mind you these children have had minuscule to zero exposure to English. Some of my students, although  officially in the five year old class, in western age have not even reached 3 years of age.

I had been warned about the fitful crying tantrums of the first two weeks of school. Luckily however, we did not have the track record of the previous year, but we did not escape the crying episodes. Jerom was the first to break "Oma, Oma, Oma" he wailed, "mommy, mommy, mommy."  Try as I might to console his tears, my round eyes and unfamiliar features only served to frighten him further.  The art teacher, an older woman seemed to be the only cure for his blues.  She cradled him like a baby and cooed him into a limboed state somewhere between wails and zombie-like acceptance (as long as she was nearby).  The next child to follow in the steps of his mommy-missing predecessors was Richard.  But instead of yelping for his mother, he screamed in a hot tempered fashion breathing at the rate of a fire-breathing dragon in a marathon race.  His red-rimmed eyes illuminated the image of his uncontrollable temper.  He pointed his finger at me, and told me, in not such a kind voice, to go away when I attempted to distract him with toys. He stomped the ground, and threw himself down at the mercy of the floor.  He was plain and simply furious with us.  How could we keep him here against his will away from his mom, toys and home. His tempered raged for hours, once again only consoled by teacher Sunny, the art teacher, who he eventually referred to as grandmother.

We are now finishing our first week together, and the kids and I are slowly getting used to one another.  But it has been difficult and will continue to challenge all of us.  For one thing, we do not understand one another.  They constantly walk up to me and ask me questions.  I try to pick out familiar words, but even their Korean is baby talk, and the Korean teacher, in order to understand, has to ask them to repeat often.  Most of the time, I just follow them and see where they take me.  Sometimes they take me to the bathroom, and sometimes to the water fountain.  Other times they take me to the slide and explain something to me that I cannot understand. "Cindy?" (my Korean co-teacher) I look around lost for what to do.

When they begin to cry, I have no idea what they need or want.  They try as hard as they can to get me to understand, but I never do. This afternoon, little Elise grabbed my hand and tried to explain something about the slide. She pointed at Ester. Ester walked up to her and yelled something in her face.  This was then followed by open mouthed crying and flailing on the floor on Esters behalf.  I pat Esters back and then went in search of Cindy.

I have been video taping some moments of our first week together, and although I am significantly slower this year in editing video footage, I am looking forward to sharing some of our moments together and the adorable children I will spend the next year teaching English.

Enthusiastic about English

One part of the job that I find dreadfully monotonous is called "immigration."  Because our school is a camp, the youngsters (or adults, depending on the program) are first taken to the gym to be given an orientation that all but 3 students talk through without listening to a word.  Always a great sign that the students will be attentive, although, the orientation is completely dull.  After which the students are taken to their dormitories, followed by a trip to "the airport."  Yep, they go to the airport.  It's not a real airport. That would be amazing, but instead they are taken to the room which is setup to look like the immigration desks when one flies internationally.  They are going through immigration as a symbol that they are officially leaving Korea and entering into an English only school.  But of course, the first words they hear after "immigration" are in Korean, so it doesn't really make the magic in the room stick.  The kids are typically terrified.  They stare at us as if we are aliens, trembling in their school uniform booties afraid we might get hungry and start to eat them.  We ask simple questions, "how are you?" "What's your name?" "Whats your favorite sport?" etc.  Generally its a struggle and I forget what questions I've already asked and what question I asked them 5 minutes ago when we both spaced out, she because she didn't know the answer and she has been pretending to be thinking about it rather than saying I don't know, and me because I have asked this set of questions about thirty times already in last half hour.

One student yesterday surprised me however yesterday.  Her English was a much higher level than the others and she was excited when answering the questions.  So excited in fact, she didn't want our little interview to end. Instead of walking away when I had finished, she began to examine me. 
Me: "What do you do for fun?"
Student: "I play my favorite computer game."
"Whats your favorite computer game?"
"Starbell" (or something like that.  I didn't really understand and I didn't really want to know)
"Great!" I said feigning interest.
"Teacher, what is your favorite computer game?"
(Stunned....What, she's asking me a question?) "uhh.. I don't like computer games."
(she stares at me like I'm an alien.  Everyone loves computer games!")
I continue- "but my husband plays World of Warcraft."
"What's that teacher?"
"It's a fantasy game."
(she stares at me again)
I continue, "it has elves and things in it."
"What are elves?"
"you know, those magic people with pointy ears."
"you mean aliens?"
"Yes, yes, aliens, that's exactly what I mean." I lie.  I don't think I can explain a game I never play, nor explain an elf from an alien right now.  "Have a great day!" I say pushing her along.

So, I'm not a perfect teacher, as you can see, but at least I have a story from it.

Making a Christmas tree

Christmas in Korea is strange.  I mean, I understand that it isn't really their tradition and that through American movies and Western idea brainwashing, they have begun to incorporate our holidays into their culture in their own fashion.  There are similarities. Department stores put up beautiful Christmas tree displays.  Some of them are truly fabulous.  Even our little podunk town has strung Christmas lights on the shivering naked trees that line the street to the subway station.

The differences however are stark.  For instance, the biggest difference is how they spend Christmas.  They go on dates.  It's kind of like Valentines, in that if you don't have a loved one, you feel left out.  I don't know how this tradition started, but kids are left behind, and couples go out on a romantic outing.

Another difference is the gift giving.  I don't really think they give many gifts at Christmas.  This week, we have been practicing the question "What do you want for Christmas?"  These are the answers:
I want...
to make a snowman
candy
cake
my mom (her mom is very busy and she never sees her)
books

There is only one kid who has his exact toy picked out.  Jude, he's secretly my favorite, although, he also  is extremely hyperactive.  I just really like his enthusiasm.  Even when he is acting out, it is because he is just so enthusiastic about life! His wish is for a remote controlled toy tank.  That a boy.

And they don't do Christmas trees in the homes.  They see them around stores and in the movies so they know what they are, but the majority of them have never decorated a tree in their lives.  So I have made it my goal before I left to make sure they got the full experience of decorating a tree.  There was only one problem.  The preschool didn't provide us with a Christmas tree.  Not to fear, arts and crafts are here.

The first step- making a Christmas tree. Only half of the class showed up on the day (Fridays are more of fun days so some moms had taken their kids skiing) we made the tree.  The kids drew their little hands on green construction paper and cut them out.  But because only half of them were there, they ended up having to do twice the work, meaning they had to draw and cut at least ten hands a piece.  They were exhausted by the end of it. Literally, I had to give them a nap.  But after layering their hands into the shape of a Christmas tree, they were ecstatic.  Absolutely thrilled. And so was I.  In the end, the sweat and toil was worth it.









 

The next step was to make snowflakes.  They weren't so great at this, but some of the snowflakes really turned out beautifully.  Mostly the ones the parents helped with. They had snowflake homework after I realized that thirty minutes of snowflake cutting training would not be enough to create 6 year old masterpieces.  Their homework was to take home paper and teach their parents how to cut snowflakes so they could do it together.  They brought back some of their parents and sibling's snowflakes as well.

Next... making fake presents.  Wrapping pieces of construction paper with real wrapping paper and ribbon was a task, but they turned out pretty good.  I even let loose, and gave the kids control over to where they put their own present, under the tree.

The last step was making ornaments to actually decorate the tree with.  I printed out photos for each child to put in their locket like ornaments.  The outside, they decorated how they wished and on the inside flap, they put their picture for all to see when opened.