Valentine's Day

For Valentine’s Day, my mom sent candy and valentines for the kids—they loved it! I had the 5th graders write Valentine’s cards to their moms. One boy even gave me his valentine and a chocolate bar at the end of class. (5th grade remains my favorite class—I almost never leave the classroom without getting a present or some candy. And they still stand up and applaud for me when I come in.) The rest of the classes did Valentine’s-themed competitions.
Talking about American holidays can be challenging though, since I often end up explaining things that are second-nature to me (I think I wrote about Santa Claus breaking into people’s houses in a previous post). For example, an answer for a crossword was “Cupid” and I found myself trying to describe him to a bunch of 8th-graders: “Well, he’s a baby…but he flies. And he has a bow and arrow. And he flies around and shoots people. And then they fall in love….Stop looking at me like I’m crazy! I didn’t make it up!” 5th grade did a hidden picture puzzle had things like, “dog leash, ice cream cone, canoe” in it. For “canoe” I just said, “small boat,” but “dog leash” was a little more difficult: “Americans sometimes like to walk around with our dogs, but we don’t want them to run away. So it’s a rope that you tie to your dog. And then you hold the other end. And then you walk around like that.” I don’t know if they really understand what I’m talking about or if they just nod their heads to humor me.
The “roses are red” poem, which I wrote down for 5th grade so they could include it in their cards, was also not as straightforward as I had thought. I listened to my CP’s Mongolian explanation of the poem and realized she was translating “And so are you” as “And you are also red, blue, and sweet.” I didn’t correct her, even though the kids looked pretty confused as to why that would be romantic.