Yesterday was halloween. I was trying to teach the phrase “trick or treat” to my first graders. I gave them pumpkin cut-outs for them to draw faces on, then we would go out to the lobby from the classroom and say “trick or treat” to the front desk lady, and attach our pumpkins to a wall and hopefully get some candy.
As we marched out of the classroom to the lobby, the kids all in masks or witch hats, I would say “trick or treat,” and they would gamely (lamely?) try to imitate. But by the time we got to the lobby, they had given up on the difficult-to-pronounce “tr-” part of the phrase, and were simply saying “chaka chaka” when I said “trick or treat.”
It was like a dance line: “trick or treat!” I would say. “Chaka chaka!” they would answer. All in good fun.
Here’s Jeonghyeon, a third grader, wearing my hat and coat and wielding my devil’s pitchfork and mugging for the camera.
