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Join UsNews / Nunn Road / 2016 / September 2016
We have just celebrated the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon-cake festival with the children. In the time leading up to this celebration, the children happily picked the ‘blue flowers’ in the garden during their playtime to give to Auntie Janet who washed and kept them aside. The flowers were later processed into blue food dye. At the same time, green colour food dye was obtained from pandan leaves.
During one of the morning artistic activities, the children made and coloured their own lanterns to bring home. The big children in the class used their nimble fingers to twist yarn strings to use as handles for the lanterns.
On the eve of the celebration, the older children rolled the mooncake skin mixture into round balls and these were kept in the fridge. On the morning of the celebration, the children gathered in the dining area to make moon-cakes.
First, they rolled lotus paste into round balls. Then they flattened the mooncake skin mix balls using their their hands and then placed the lotus paste balls in the middle. Then the skin was wrapped round the paste and the mixture is 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 placed into the fridge to set.
In the afternoon the children with the teacher’s help packed the beautifully set moon-cakes. The fresh and delicious smell wafting from the moon-cakes lingered in the classroom long after we had finished packing. The children were excited to take home their creations.
Seeing that the children also preferred to eat our own homemade moon-cakes rather than the store-bought ones, we decided to serve them only the moon-cakes dyed with the blue-flower and pandan food dyes which the teachers made a day before the celebration.
We had our celebration during the morning snack time. 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 together happily to eat the delicious moon-cakes and to drink tea.
We ended the play with the moon-cake festival’s song and enjoyed the snack with the children.
Moving along, the children are practising songs and poems for the coming Harvest Festival. We do this during the morning ring time. The big children in the class lead the younger ones during practices.
In Nania, we celebrate Harvest Festival to thank Mother Nature for 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.
We embodied the spirit of the Harvest festival by sowing some vegetable and flower seeds in the vegetable beds at the corner of the garden together with the children. The project was not as successful as we would have wished but the simple joy on the faces of the children as they sowed the seeds and nurtured the plants was reward enough.
Recently we had a shampooing, washing and grooming session for the rabbits with the children during the outside play time. We had also harvested the bananas from our garden. We will enjoy the ripe bananas during one of the afternoon snack time.
We enclose herewith the Harvest Festival programme and songs for your attention. Please be on time as the children will start the day by making bread for snack time. We look forward to sharing a wonderful celebration with you and your family.
After the Harvest festival, the children in the English class will be preparing for the graduation ceremony of the 5 six years-olds. The 5 children have for the past few days begun making their ‘star crown’ as well as decorating their musical instruments with colourful crepe streamers.
In October, we have planned for an evening meeting with all the parents on the 14th of October (Friday). I hope everyone will make an effort to attend so that we can share with you the development of the children.Teacher Nora