Valentine's Celebration SUCCESS... and still 5 days until V-DAY!

I just finished the second of my two ESS Valentine's Day parties, both of which went really well. We did the balloon-stomping game and chocolate fondue at both of them and the kids seemed to love it. Harinan also got to do the Pinatas and we combined the Takanan party with a Farewell party for the graduating ESS members.

First, the Takasago Minami Party. The girls love decorating the board when we have ESS, but their messages are sometimes a little funny or cute. I also made made a CD of Love-themed songs for the party, but they were all pretty slow, so we ended up listening to a Britney Spears remix album that one of the girls had with her:


Fondue!! No Japanese Valentine's Day is complete without chocolate (and lots of it), so we decided to do chocolate fondue:

Naoko-chan, one of the graduating seniors that I've had club with since I came, is so silly - always posing for pictures:


After cleaning out the fondue pots, it was time to start with the games! We started with the balloon-popping game. Each player has a balloon tied to their ankle and you try to pop each other's balloons (by stepping on them) without getting yours popped. To win the game, you have to be the last person with an un-popped balloon:


The game got so intense (lots of running around) that the students actually made a little obsticle course with the extra chairs. Then the last five players moved the chairs into a circle and took a little breather before going for the win.
The game was actually pretty funny to watch, but I was a little worried about what my coworkers would think was going on in the classroom with students running around, screaming and balloons popping...haha:

We were having so much fun that I don't think anyone wanted to go home right away and the party lasted for almost three hours! After the balloon game we decided to cool things down, however, and resorted to a few rounds of Jenga before playing some American card games:

Takanan First Years:

Takanan Second Years:

Takanan Third Years ~　寂しくなります ！:

We took so many variations of this picture and the boys were equally stoic in every shot... cracks me up, but I was impressed they actually let us take pictures of them (they're sometimes a bit shy):

And now for HARINAN....

So that was the party at my regular school, Takasago Minami High School, last week. This year I started teaching at another high school, Harima Minami HS, on Mondays. Today was our English Club Valentine's Day party:

We also did chocolate fondue (with two pots...):

PLUS a full put of chocolate!! This was out of control. I think we used about 14 milk chocolate candy bars, four bunches of bananas, three cartons of strawberries, bread, a big box of Ritz crackers, two apples and three bags of marshmellows.

I felt a little ill after basically eating chocolate for dinner, but, man, was it good:

Even more exciting, THE PINATA WORKED!

I decorated two of the four pinatas I made for Valentine's Day and AJ, my coworker, and I filled them with candy and little bags of snacks. We just used a little hook from the the ￥100 Store to hang them from the ceiling, a roll of poster paper as a bat and the plan worked like a charm:

I think the girls liked it:

We played the balloon game at Harinan, too. Everyone got really into it, so the game went quickly, but we were all laughing really hard:

Overall, a lot of fun at both parties! I'm already looking forward to the next one!