Morning Assembly
On Monday and Tuesday, the Thai Baan Association (TBA) hosted quite a festive and extravagant Christmas party for the students in some of the surrounding small schools. Because of the large volume of participating students, we had to divide the party into two separate days. Except for a handful of differences, both days followed the same schedule and included the same activities. It was a busy couple of days, but it was definitely all worth it.
The party officially kicked off with a morning assembly around 9:00 a.m. All the students and teachers gathered under the shelter to hear from a few speakers and learn the schedule for the day. We had some special guests come and speak to the students as well. Two highlights were the director of the local small school coalition and a professor from Mahasarakham University. After the special guests, Pa Lam and I spoke about TBA and Christmas, respectively. Everyone then took a group picture, and the festivities commenced.
Morning Rotations
I decided that the only sensible way to do activities with this many students would be to split them up into smaller groups and have them rotate through four stations: games, tree decorating, crafts, and an English lesson. Some teachers from the schools agreed to help with the stations, so after a brief training, I assigned them to different groups and tasked them with running the different rotations. The students were then divided into four equal teams that were represented by different colored wristbands (red, green, white, and blue). Each team would have around 30 minutes at each station before they’d have to move to the next one.
Games was probably the kids' favorite rotation, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. There were two very different games that the students would get to play. Firstly, there was a relay race that required the students to wear a pair of stockings on their heads that had a ball inside. They then had to race and knock down a group of bottles by swinging their heads. Secondly, there was a game of Christmas bingo, which all the students absolutely loved playing. Every time I teach a lesson, someone inevitably asks me whether we’re playing bingo. Most of the time, the answer is “no,” so they were quite excited to finally hear “yes!”
The second rotation was tree decorating, although “making decorations” is probably a more apt name. Here, the students learned how to make paper snowflakes. This was the most difficult of the stations, as one wrong cut can turn your beautiful snowflake into an asymmetrical mess. Luckily, the teachers leading this station knew exactly what they were doing and did a great job at making the process easier. They even made step-by-step models so the kids could forgo the guesswork. After the students made their snowflakes, they attached them to some string and hung them around the shelter. Everyone did a phenomenal job, and seeing all the snowflakes strung around definitely transported me to a bit of a winter wonderland.
The third—and most involved—rotation was crafts. Here, the students had two things they had to make. Firstly, the main craft was a reindeer hat made out of paper and craft sticks. I wanted every student to have something Christmasy to wear in photos and to bring home. I obviously couldn’t buy anything (even the cheapest Santa hats become expensive when you have to buy 200 of them), so I figured a fun craft was the next best thing. Making the hats was simple enough: cut a section of paper to make a headband; trace and cut out your hands; glue them to craft sticks; and attach them to the headband. The second craft was a simple snowman chain made from scrap pieces of paper. Some of them turned out so nice that they were hung with the snowflakes from rotation #2.
The fourth and final rotation was an English lesson, where I was in charge—how shocking! I wanted to do a capstone-esque activity that incorporated all the Christmas material from the month. I decided watching a simple Christmas TV special was an easy way to reinforce the students' Christmas vocabulary and practice their listening skills. I settled on the 1966 classic, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” The lesson started with a brief vocabulary review and then transitioned into actually watching the show. Afterwards, we had a very brief discussion on the overall narrative and character of the Grinch. The students really enjoyed the show, and I loved sharing one of my favorite Christmas films with them. Although I must say, watching the Grinch eight times in two days really took a lot of willpower.
Afternoon Assembly
Once all the groups had completed the four rotations, they gathered back under the shelter to receive instructions for lunch. Each student was then given a bag that contained their food and was able to spread out and eat around the association.
After lunch, I went to see how things were going in the coffee shop. When I turned the corner, I was instantly greeted with something that resembled the bar scene from Gremlins. Children were huddled all around the counter, shaking money in hand, and yelling out a plethora of drink orders. Pi Eye was frantically making drinks as quickly as she could, but it was clearly too much for one person (or even two people, honestly). She asked me to help, so I jumped into action. It wasn’t necessarily hard, but let me just say that this was quite a sticky, never-ending test of patience. I don’t know how Pi Eye does it.
Eventually, all the students were gathered under the shelter for the afternoon assembly. It started with a brief recap of the morning and the passing out of a few snacks. Next, it was time to don my performer’s hat, grab my guitar, and teach the students a song. We learned the words to “Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town” and then sang it as best we could. Afterwards, I had the kids chant “Santa!” three times, very loudly. Like magic, we then had a visit from Santa Claus (or two), who then passed out more snacks to the children and acted as an emcee for the remainder of the afternoon.
Each school then had to participate in a little showcase. It consisted of performing a little dance number, usually set to a Christmas song. Some groups got particularly fancy and even coordinated matching outfits. One student even dressed up as Santa Claus and passed out candy at the end of their school’s performance—how creative! Once each school finished the dance, Santa—the real one, not the kid—presented them with a giant package of candy and snacks. After all the performances, Pa Lam and I closed the celebration with a few words of thanks, and then everyone piled together for one big picture.
Closing Thoughts
Planning and executing an event like this is something I’ve never done before. The fact that it was almost a seven-hour event and the insane number of students involved definitely kept me in a stressful state during the planning process. But as cheesy as it sounds, all those negative feelings instantly went away upon seeing all the students' happy and smiling faces throughout the party. There were many hoops to jump through (I’m looking at you, craft station), and I was exhausted for about three days following the parties, but it was so worth it in the end for the kids to have a memorable and exciting Christmas.
Obviously, this wasn’t a one-man show, and my part was insignificant compared to the kindness and dedication of everyone else involved. From the teachers who sacrificed their Saturday morning for the rotation training to the school directors who arranged the transportation and funding logistics, and especially to Pa Lam and the TBA staff who kept everything going, none of this would’ve been possible.
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