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This week in English club, we decided to go with a Halloween theme even if it is a little early. Next week the students will be on fall break and we'll be travelling, so now seemed as good a time as any!

Both of Lauren's English clubs, which meet on Mondays and Thursdays respectively, watched Disney's Haunted Halloween, which includes a nice explanation of the history behind the holiday and also serves as a PSA for safe trick-or-treating. Who knows what those kids were thinking when they saw "EXAMINE ALL TREATS" flash across the screen!

After the video, we carved our own jack-o-lantern. Finding a good pumpkin is no easy feat in these parts and last year, Lauren just gave up on finding a nice round pumpkin or even a pumpkin that could stand up on its own. This year, she had readjusted her expectations but still wasn't hopeful when lo and behold, she found what she thought might be the perfect pumpkin, for the perfect price (about $1.50). True, it did bear a striking resemblance to Mr. Peanut but the bottom half was as round as any mini-pumpkin, so she bought it anyway:

The second pumpkin was similar to the first, but Lauren got so excited when she saw it, that she didn't even notice it was laying on its side -- and for good reason! Michael had to slice off the bottom to make it stand up straight. Major disappointment. Either way, the kids loved carving the pumpkins! Monday's club of older students was very apprehensive, so Lauren sketched out the top to give them an idea of what to do but Thursday's group of younger students dove right in on their own, sketching and carving on their own from the start:

A 9th grader from the first group, drawing the face:

and then carving:

Soon enough, the other 9th grade boys wanted to participate too, but they didn't understand the whole cut-along-the-line part as well so their pumpkin wasn't perfect, but pretty darn close! All the kids ended up participating in one way or another, whether they cut off the top, drew the eyes, nose, or mouth, cut them out, or scraped out the insides:

The 7th graders were very hands on and we mean that literally! They actually used their hands to scoop out the pumpkin's insides and boy, were they ever orange afterwards, as you can see by the girls' hand in the corner! It was a good thing that Lauren thought to bring wet wipes to clean up that mess.

One creative 7th grader decided to add eyebrows to their group's pumpkin:

And here are the 9th graders' with their creation:

Lauren also made a Halloween themed treat -- brownies with orange frosting. Or at least that's what it was supposed to be. Since she couldn't find food coloring at first, she went with a recipe that included egg yolks, orange peel, and orange juice to make the color orange. The recipe for the frosting turned out to be more like a glaze than a frosting but it sure made those brownies moist and with the orange peel settling to the top, it had the desired effect. The taste was very similar to that of a Palmer's Orange Slices, albeit a bit sweeter, and the kids gobbled them up! For Thursday's club, Lauren decided to have another go at making frosting and settled on buttercream, adding an orange food coloring powder. Unfortunately we have neither a hand mixer nor a whisk, so after 10 minutes of beating with a fork, Michael thought of putting the frosting in a tupperware container and shaking all the air out. Pretty genius because it more or less worked, and the second group ate even more brownies than the first.

The girls seemed to especially love them -- these 9th grade girls had four of the first batch each!

Not everyone liked the jack-o-lanterns as much as the kids though. When our former host mother came over this week for dinner, she commented that if you were going to bother carving a smile, you shouldn't make it look so scary!