News / Nunn Road / 2015 / July & August 2015

We are pleased that you spent some time with us during our Lantern Festival.  To the children, the Lantern Festival is an eventful festival celebration. To begin with, they started practising the festival’s poems, songs and dances very early on.  After they had made their lanterns, they rehearsed the lantern walk eagerly anticipating the arrival of the actual celebration day.  As there was a combined presentation with the Japanese class, they learned to recite poems and songs in Japanese as well.  Children are amazing at imitation thus you must be pleased to know that they were able to do both exceptionally well. The same goes to the Japanese children too.  They were able to recite poems in Hokkien with the English class children.

To get the children into the mood of the celebration, we also made origami lantern a few days earlier.  They then hung the lanterns in the garden on Lantern day.  Those little lanterns you observed on the branches everywhere were the children’s handiwork. 

On the morning of Lantern Day, children rolled the ‘dango’ dough into small round balls. We boiled them in the afternoon and that transformed into the delicious ‘dango’ that everyone enjoyed that evening.

Before they helped to arrange chairs in the garden, they wrapped the legs of the chairs with plastic bags to avoid them from getting muddy.  We prayed hard for good weather and our prayers were answered.  The evening went on without much glitch.  Those children that came on time were well prepared for the presentation as they had time to settle down.  Hence preparing children early in all thing helps.  Nevertheless, I am proud of their willingness, capability and courage to sing and recite before such a large crowd.  Of course, some of the younger ones were overwhelmed but given time; they will be ready to confidently participate in the celebrations. 

The lantern walk was cut short because we didn’t want to compromise the safety of our children when we saw some dogs hanging around the road.  Perhaps, next year, we can arrange for the fathers to walk ahead and secure the road so that the children can enjoy a longer lantern walk.

All in all, even though it was a long and tiring day for everyone, especially the children, we think the effort was worth it as we know the importance of festivals in the life of these young children.

We have planned for an evening meeting with all the parents on the 4^th of September (Friday).  I hope everyone will make an effort to attend so that we can exchange views about the development of children at Nania.

We are approaching our two-week term break; I wish you and your family a wonderful holiday.

                                                                                                        Teacher Nora