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Join UsNews / Nunn Road / 2020 / September 2020
We just celebrated our Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon-cake Festival with the children at Nania. I hope you enjoyed the mooncakes that the children made for you.
As we couldn’t celebrate our Lantern Festival this year due to RMCO, we decided to make lanterns with the children for their Mooncake Festival. Their lanterns were made with the papers that they painted on during our Painting Day. The making of the lantern set the class into the festive mood.
In the time leading up to Mooncake Festival celebration, the children picked the ‘blue flowers’ in the garden during their playtime. They passed the flowers to Auntie Janet who washed and kept them aside. The flowers were later processed into blue food dye. At the same time, green food dye was obtained from pandan leaves.
A day before the celebration, the children went to the kitchen to see the food dye making processes carried out by the Auntie Janet.
On the morning of the celebration, the children made their own moon cakes consisting of 1 blue and 1 green mooncake.
First, they rolled the lotus paste into balls. Then, they flattened the mooncake skin with their hands and then placed the lotus paste ball in the middle. Later, the skin is wrapped round the paste and the mixture was rolled into a ball again. Lastly, they placed the rounded mixture into a moon-cake mould and pressed it till it fitted perfectly into the mould. The moon-cakes were then put into the fridge to set. The same process was repeated for the other coloured mooncake.
Before our snack time, English Class children went to the dining hall. We teachers enacted a simple play by acting out the meaning behind this celebration i.e. the roundness of the moon symbolizes the unity of a family when everyone gathers happily together to eat the delicious moon-cakes and to drink tea.
We ended the play with a moon-cake festival song and enjoyed eating the homemade mooncakes with the children. These mooncakes had been made a day before by the teachers and kept in the fridge to set.
The same process was repeated for Japanese Class children too. I am a bit sad that we can’t celebrate this festival together with you.
In the afternoon, the children with the teacher’s help packed the beautifully set mooncakes the children had made. The children were happy that they can share their handmade moon-cakes with their family members. When they went home, each child was given that box of mooncakes together with their handmade lantern to take home. During the story time, I told the children the legend about the Mid-Autumn Festival. They heard about Hou Yi and Chang Er.
Now, the children are practising songs and poems for the upcoming Harvest Festival. The big koko and jiejie in the class lead the younger ones during practices in our morning ring time. Meanwhile, the ladies’ finger and long beans plants are growing taller day by day in our vegetable beds. Children help to water them during our outside play time.
In Nania, we celebrate Harvest Festival to thank Mother Nature for the sun, rain and wind. Through the poems and songs, the children express their gratefulness for the food on their plates and to the farmers who work hard to grow the crops as well as to their parents who lovingly prepare food for them.
I am sorry that we can’t invite parents to join this festival this year, we will only celebrate this festival with the children. There will be a puppet show for both class children separately and they will bring home “Happy Flower” (origami paper flower made by teachers) on that day. We will celebrate Harvest Festival on 9th October.
Recently we refurnished our tree house (children called it ciku-jo, means Ciku Castle in Japanese). We replaced the worn-out pieces of woods and added the roof to give better protection to the tree house. While Uncle William and Aunty Annie were doing the work, the children went to visit them. The children observed how they worked and shown their gratitude to Uncle and Aunty.
The ladies’fingerand long beans in our vegetable beds are growing well. The children helped to water them during our outside playtime. We thanked “Mr. Rain” when it waters the plants for us too.
A couple of birds came to Nania garden and built their nest. The mother bird laid three eggs and hatched them. Now they are busy feeding their birdies and they grow so fast. Children were amazed to see these new lives growing up before their eyes!
