Besides the fact that I had my camera on the wrong setting all evening (argh-[and that's the official pirate spelling, thank you]) we had a fabulously fun Mongolian Genghis Khan Achievement Party. (We had studied the ancient Mongolians a few weeks ago.)
The furry invitations were placed on their desks earlier in the week.
The day before the party, four of the teachers were in the kitchen preparing a delightful menu of authentic, Mongolian recipes. The downstairs of the school still smells amazing a few days later.
Menu:
Buuz
Guuriltai shul
Khuushuur
Boortsog
Suutei tsai
Dumplings filled with beef: Buuz
Vegetable and chicken soup: guriltai shul
Beef and chicken filled fried pockets: khuushuur
Mean, Mongolian cooks
Donut/cookies: Boortsog
These yummy, fried donuts were served Mongolian-style, stacked upon a cake plate with candles on top.
Creamy tea with milk: Suutei tsai
After school the students met Genghis Khan (Mr. Swanson) in the stairwell where he gave them envelopes. The envelopes informed them which teams they were on, and what they were to do first: put on their robes or long shirts and winter hats (which their invitations instructed them to bring), and Mongolian sashes (which I had cut out earlier and provided for them.)
The teams were named as follows: Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, Marco Polo, Chepe Noyon, and Temujin. Next they were told to go outside and find five Mongolian coins and a Mongolian sheep bone hidden in the bushes around the school. 
After that they ran downstairs and played Mongolian morra, a finger-counting game. Then they ran upstairs to play Khan Curling, a game in which they slid bean-filled socks down the hall trying to get one to land on the Khan's nose. Next they were given duct tape by our principal to practice yurt-sitting. The team with the most points received a small prize.
Then all the teams met downstairs while Genghis did some Mongolian throat singing for them. Really.
Then we all headed out beyond the soccer field where we had built a yurt the day before after school. Several of my eighth graders from last year, who are now ninth graders, assisted us in making the yurt, and they were amazing. They also dressed up and helped us serve at the party.
The yurt
Snugly inside the yurt, we enjoyed that fabulous Mongolian menu, sang songs, told stories, played a game, and laughed a lot. Two spies stole the khan's cup, which we retrieved and then witnessed to the spies, hoping they would become khan-verts. We played kahn-fusion in which we had to khan-centrate. We decided that we did not live in Khan-sas, Khan-necticut, or Khanada; but that we liked Khan-verse tennis shoes.
We were going to go outside and look at the Mongolian khan-stellations, but it was too cloudy. (Yes, we milked the whole "khan" thing quite a bit. The students were really into it. )
We left the yurt up until the next day so that the other grades could go inside it. During the last hour of the day, which was a study hall, most of the seventh and eighth graders went out into the wind and cold and helped us take down our yurt.
