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On Sunday, October 27th, we held the 12th annual Mark's English School Halloween Party! This year we had a pirate theme Halloween party with a Pirate Cove photo spot and a full beach on the stage. There were a lot of fun pirate games, pirate treats and plenty of other Halloween fun for the kids.

We had 86 children and 50 adults attend the party this year.

We set up a fun pirate photo spot for party guests. It had an East India Trading company crate, Pirate Cove sign, pirate flag, bottles, and barrel, and pirate skeleton prop. Here are a few of the party guests:

We usually start the party off with a group game. This year, we had the Pirate Relay. We separate people into two teams. The first person had to put on an eye patch. They ran across a plank over shark infested waters. At the end of the room, they had to catch a sword and then throw the sword through a rope loop. If they could do that, they got their pirate mark (a Halloween slap bracelet.) Then, the students returned and handed the ey patch to the next person. The first team to finish was the winner and they got some Halloween treats. (We had a separate race for junior high school to adult students. They had to balance a pirate sword on their hand, throw the sword up in the air, and catch it with the same hand.) All the participants got to keep the slap bracelet.

Every year we have the traditional Halloween/Fall Harvest Festival game, Bobbing for Apples. Apples are placed in the water and people have to get the apples without using their hands.

After apple bobbing, we have the Halloween festival with different games and activities for the kids. This year we had some fun pirate challenges for the kids. There was a sword balancing challenge, coin catch and treasur chest soin toss. For the sword catch, kids had to stand on the plank, balance a swod on one hand, throw the sword into the air, and catch it with the same hand. For the coin catch, kids need to place their hand on their neck, balance a coin on the same elbow, and then catch the coin with the same hand. They had only one chance. For the coin toss, students were given three gold coins. They had to flick them into the treasure chest from the pier. They got chocolate gold coins for every coin they put into the pirate chest.

Every year, we have Halloween Bingo. If children got bingo, they had their choice of a pirate lollipop, pirate pencil and eraser set, and other Halloween treats.

A new game for this year was the Pirate Cove Treasure Hunt. 2 kids battle to find the treasure first. 16 cards are placed on the treasure map. Kids take turns and flip over one card at a time. The first to find the treasur is the winner. But, there were three ghost pirate cards. If you get a ghost pirate, you're dead and the othe person can continue searching for the treasure. If both players die in the search, the cards are shuffled and delt out again. The winners got a ring pop.

Another game for this year was the Bone Collector Game. Children battled each other to collect the most bone cards. They turned over one card each and the person with the most bones was the winner. If the card was a bone collector, that person collected all of the cards.

Every year we have a Halloween Craft Spot. This year, kids could make Halloween Origami.

Once the games are over, we have Treat Time. Tomoko makes over 1,000 cookies, eyeballs, and this year Pirate ship cakes! There are gruesome drinks, popcorn, candy corn, and maybe a few other Halloween snacks for the party guests.

Towards the end of snack time, we announce the Costume Contest winners. You can see this year's winners below: cute (the winner went home early, prize accepted by Mr. Incredible), adult, pair, 2nd place and 1st place. The unique costume prize went to a frog, but she was too shy to come up and take a picture. We also take a group photo and below you can see most of the participants (some on the edges didn't make it, sorry.)

As the final event, we have the traditional Trick-Or-Treat. Some volunteers lined up along the front and helped to pass out candies and treats to all of the costumed trick-or-treaters.

Here are a few more fun pictures from the party and shows you some of the other great costumes.

I'd like to thanks all of the people that helped make this party a success. On Saturday night before the party, we had a team of volunteers come and help set up. I'd like to thank them all: Kita, David, Haruo, Miho, the Kubotas, Kurumi, and Ryan.

On the day we had even more help and I'd like to thank Dennis, Yoshinori, Alex, Yoshinori, Miho, Shion, Rinhe, and Manami. Every year Hosogaya Apple Orchard donates apples for the Apple Bobbing and we'd love to send a special thanks their way as well. The kids really enjoyed the game and the apples. (So, did I :)

I'd also like to thank all of the party guests. It's great to see everyone in costume and I hope you all had a fabulous time. We sure did.

Last, but not least, a special thanks to Tomoko and my kids for all their help with costumes, props, cookies, treats, shopping trips, clean up and for another fantastic Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

- Mark