News / Nunn Road / 2007 / June 2007 (E68)

Dear parents,

I am happy to have all the children back after the school holidays. Paul and Livia have gone back to Austria for their holidays. We will see them again at the end of July.

After the school holidays, the display hall has been transformed into a warm and calm place with candles and handmade lanterns. The children who have experienced this before know that the Lantern Festival is coming. We are practicing poems, finger games and songs during ring time for the festival. Lantern Festival is one of the most exciting festivals for me since I was small. Every year, when I make lanterns with the children at Nania, I recall the sweet memory I had with my father. When I was a child, he helped me to make a lantern. I wish to meet all of you on that festival evening.

Last week, I asked the children to take out their stickers from their water bottles and bags. I told the children that cartoon characters only live in their TV world. They shouldn’t come to class. I would like to share my rational for making this decision with you. Please refer to the next columm.

Teacher Thian

Children below the age of 7 learn through imitation. They imitate whatever they see or hear from their surroundings. It is not only words and behaviour that they imitate. Children also pick up moods and attitudes through imitating other people’s feelings and inner qualities.

Unlike adults whose thinking abilities are more developed, children can’t choose what to hear and what to see. They are an “open sense organ” and most importantly, they believe everything they see in this world is true. Understanding children’s development, I am concerned about our modern children who are exposed to TV and many cartoon characters from a very young age.

I can see the boys imitating the actions of some cartoon characters or making electronic-type action sounds. Girls wish to wear beautiful dresses like Barbie Doll.

Our children are not only influenced by the TV. We can see all sorts of merchandise like toys, stickers, T-shirts, dresses, bags, books and etc in the market. Children demand such merchandise because of the cartoon characters they like. Shouldn’t adults, who are paying the money, have more say in these decisions?

In Nania, we discourage imitation of TV cartoon characters. Such play is somewhat prescribed, limited in scope and not as rich on social interaction, imagination and speech formation. Consequently, we discourage children from bringing merchandise associated with them to the class. I am looking for your cooperation to minimize the influence of TV and cartoon characters on our children. .


About the Lantern Festival Celebration

The Lantern Festival is one of the big festivals we celebrate with parents at Nania. The Nania Lantern Festival brings together elements from the Chinese Moon Cake Festival and the Japanese Summer Bon Festival.

Bon is one of Japan’s summer festivals and is a time when people make offerings of food and other things to their ancestors and pray for the happiness of their ancestors’ souls in the next world. It takes place from the 13th to 15th of August, and during this time the folk dance known as Bon Odori can be seen in cities, towns and villages all over Japan.

Moon Cake Festival otherwise kwown as the Mid-Autumn Festival, is the third major festival of the Chinese calendar. It is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. This festival is also known as the Moon Cake Festival because a special kind of sweet cake prepared in the shape of the moon and filled with sesame seeds, ground lotus seeds and duck eggs is served as a delicacy.

This year we will celebrate the festival on 19th July (Thursday) . (Please take note the change of date. This change is necessary because we were not able to book the parking space on 20th July). We will celebrate this festival in the evening at Nania’s garden if it does not rain

On the festival day, children will make dango (rice dumpling) in the morning for the evening festival snack. They will start the evening with songs, a dance and then enjoy the snack they have made themselves. Then,they will do a lantern walk with their handmade lanterns.

At Nania we use candles for story time, birthdays and farewells. Candles, as lights on the Earth, are used to represent the lights in Heaven in our cultural activities. The sight of Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon and Mr. Star fill the children with wonder and awe. As Mr. Candle’s light graces their activity it brings a sense of solemnity and dignity to the children. The lantern walk during the Lantern Festival offers a moment of communion in the children’s hearts between the lights on earth and the lights in the heavens.

The children have painted the paper that they will use to make their lanterns. Parents are encouraged to make lanterns with the children’s siblings for the lantern walk on that night.


Coming events

Tanabata Celebration (Friday 6th July 2007)
This is the day of the year, according to a Chinese and Japanese folktale, when the Weaver Princes and the Cowherd can meet across the Milky Way to renew their love for each other. The children will make Tanzaku for this celebration. Tanzuka and other ornaments are hung on a bamboo branch during tanabata and placed in the house as a way of entreating better things to come.

Lantern Festival (Thursday 19th July 2007)
On that day, the children will be going home early (after lunch at 12:15pm). Later, they will come back to Nania for the Lantern Festival with their parents and siblings after dinner at 6.15pm. Enclosed with this news letter are the details and a song sheet for the festival.