News / Halaman York / 2014 / December 2014

Christmas is around the corner.  The children are getting into a festive mood. They are busy practicing songs and poems. A “Star Window calendar” is placed at the center of the display table. Each day after lunch, all the children will gather about the display table. One child will open a star window on the calendar and another child will place animals on the display table with caring thoughts. Every child will have a turn to perform this ceremony until all the windows are open and we celebrate Christmas festival together.

Children will help to make Christmas cookies and wipe all the chairs as part of the festival preparation. For this festival, we work on the theme of sharing and giving with the children. Christmas is not just about receiving presents. It is also about giving. There are many misfortune and distressed people in the world. Some are sick and some are hungry. As part of the ceremony, the children are asked to think about someone who needs help and send out good thoughts and blessings to them.

For the festival craft work, children made Paper Christmas Socks. They will bring home their beautiful paintings and drawings in their Paper Christmas Sock. Browsing through their drawings, one can see how the children have developed over the months.

Nania York is now 5 months old!  Looking back, it has been a challenging and wonderful 5 months for us. We are glad to meet all the children at Nania York. For us, seeing the world through their eyes is a wonderful daily experience. We are happy the number of children has grown. We now have 12 children and more new children have registered to join the class next year. Although most of them are of a younger age group, they soon became familiar with the daily rhythm of the class. As the children are more settled the mood of the class is calmer and class activities are running smoothly.

We are pleased to introduce our new assistant teacher, Teacher Phoebe. Teacher Phoebe is a mother of a 9 year old girl who graduated from Nania. She has thought of working with children in a kindergarten for quite some time. We are happy she decided to take a step forward to join us now. Over the short period, she has in her own gentle way won the hearts of some children already. We will work together to bring love and laughter to the children you have entrusted to our care.

For next year, two 5 year olds are eagerly awaiting their turn as the 1^st batch of “big children”. They will take on more challenging activities like weaving, skipping and ball bouncing.  These will support them for further literacy development. We will introduce some writing and reading. We are confident that they will be good examples for the younger ones in the class to follow.

Amidst laughter and tears, the children have matured as individuals and also gotten closer to each other. Every afternoon they say goodbye to each other and cannot wait to see each other again the following day. They remember friends who are absent and offer prayers for those who are not well.

We look forward to see you at the Christmas festival as well as spending another year of wonderful moments with the children. As it is the last newsletter for the year, we also wish to take this opportunity to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

  Teacher Kerry & Teacher Chithra