too much

Thursday was our second field trip and it really was quite a trip.  At 9:30 all the kids arrived dressed in their traditional Korean hanboks.  Let me just say that seeing 80 kids between the ages of 5 and 3 dressed in these vibrant ensembles is quite a sight.  Before we left all the Korean staff was abuzz about the rainy forecast.  Their anxiety towards falling drops of water magnified because all the students were wearing floor length gowns that cost upwards of 200 dollars.  
All of Cat Class looked adorable, but within 15 seconds of the first one walking through the doors I knew these outfits were going to be a problem.  Traditional clothing only comes out every so often for a couple of reasons.  First, because it's important and holds meaning, therefore its only used for special occasions. Secondly, and obviously, because traditional clothing is often incredibly uncomfortable.  Under normal circumstances these kids would be wearing their hanboks for a couple hours at most, on Thursday they were slated to be draped with these yards of fabric for 6.  
As we were ushering them to the bus I realized that the term "slow and steady wins the race" was going to be the day's theme at Namsangol Hanok Village.  During the bus ride I saw just how close 2 cars can get without actually touching and now I understand why they have seat belts in all the Reggio school buses.  
Our first activity at the traditional village was to learn about the tea ceremony.  I really enjoyed this part of the day.  It was early so the students still had a slight attention span and the hanboks weren't totally driving them insane.  The rain hadn't really started, so the crazed hoards searching for shelter hadn't formed either.  

Movin and Shakin

Cat Class's second activity was learning about traditional Korean drums.  During this period, they sat down 22 three year old children in front of drums and gongs and let them go at it.  This activity was not cute -- it was slightly disastrous.  The noise was deafening, the activity lasted far too long and a member of Koala Class almost lost an eye. One of her classmates forgot about body control and hit her in the face with her gong mallet --there were some tears.  I spent most of this activity hiding behind a wooden pillar.  I was avoiding the noise and flying drum sticks.  

Dumpling Daniel

Jessica's mini gong

Then came lunch time. That's when the real action happened.  We'd been go go go all morning, the drum torture had gone a little over time and the kids didn't have their morning snack, so to say they were starving is an understatement.  As soon as they were done with the drums they started to fall apart a bit so we hustled to the meeting area where all of their lunches were waiting.  Once we got everyone situated we quickly handed out their lunch boxes, which were full of kim bop, fruit and packages of airy Korean snacks. As they sat there quietly consuming their food their food, I was impressed with their appetites, being that sometimes they don't eat very much at all. During this time I had eaten my kim bop too quickly and was dealing with a case of hick-ups. After about 20 minutes everyone had finished their food and most the kids were talking and playing.  I was cleaning up wrappers and containers when all of a sudden WoongJay hunched over and began vomiting.  Just like me, he had eaten too much too quickly, but his little body couldn't handle it.  Like a ninja I swooped in with a bag and started directing all the other kids to sit down on the other side of the mat.  A member of Giraffe Class was rocking back and forth and nearly destroyed her hanbok in the pile of puke.  Once he stopped throwing up, I took him to the bathroom to get cleaned up, at this point it was raining pretty hard and I didn't bother grabbing an umbrella - i figured the water might be kinda helpful.  After I got the little guy all cleaned up he was good as new, mildly embarrassed, but feeling fine.
Also during lunch a member of Elephant Class had an allergic reaction to his Hanbok.  Leo's skin broke out in hives and his face had swollen like a balloon.  When I heard this, I went on a rant, questioning whose decision it was to have these kids dress like this.  It was cute for photographs, but cleaning up vomit, dealing with allergies, and getting them from place to place is hard enough without having to deal with decorated shoes and floor length gowns.  Maybe re-think this for next year Reggio.  

The back of WoongJay's head

The rest of the day was relatively pain free.  They learned the proper techniques to bowing and made mini hanboks out of Korean paper.  Keeping all the kids together as we moved from activity to activity was exhausting and dealing with everyone fretting around trying to stay dry had gotten on my nerves, so when the Reggio buses arrived to take us back I gladly hopped on.  The day was done, everyone had a good time, but hopefully next months field trip doesn't involve traditional regalia, gongs or vomit.

Playing with rain.  By the end of the day the Reggio students were more popular than the actual exhibits.