News / Nunn Road / 2023 / September 2023

 Dear parents, 

We celebrated our Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival or Mooncake Festival with the children at Nania last week. We hope you enjoyed the mooncakes that children made for you. 

Few weeks before this 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, we brought the children to the kitchen to see the food dye making process carried out by Auntie Janet.

During one of the morning artistic activities, the children made and coloured their own paper lanterns. The 5 and 6-year-old children used their nimble fingers to make chain strings to use as handles for the lanterns. 

On the morning of the celebration, the children made their own moon cakes consisting of 1 blue and 1 green mooncake. First, they flattened the mooncake skin with their hands and then placed the lotus paste ball in the middle. Then, the skin was wrapped around the paste and the mixture was rolled into a ball again. Lastly, they placed the rounded mixture into a mooncake mould and pressed it until it fitted perfectly into the mould. The mooncakes were then taken out of the mould and put into the fridge to set. The same process was repeated for the other coloured mooncake. 

During our snack time, we gathered both classes in 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 where everyone gathers happily together to eat the delicious mooncakes and to drink tea. We ended the play with a mooncake 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. 

In the afternoon, the children with the teacher’s help packed the beautifully set mooncakes the children had made. When they went home, each child was given that box of mooncakes together with their handmade lantern to take home. During the story time, teacher told the children the legend about the Mid-Autumn Festival. They heard about Hou Yi and Chang Er.

The children are practicing songs and poems for the coming Harvest Festival. The big koko and jiejie in the class lead the younger ones during practices in our morning ring time. Some children were absent recently due to sickness or family trip. We hope everyone will be back on the day and enjoy the festival together.

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. 

We look forward to seeing you on the 13th of October (Friday). Please mark the date on your calendar. Kindly be punctual so that you won’t miss your child/children’s performance.                                                                                                    

                                                                                                     Teacher Thian and Teacher Ang

October 2023 Activities 

 13th (Fri)       Harvest Festival. The programme for the day is enclosed herewith. 

 20th (Fri)       Bento Day 

 26 th (Thu)    Yen Hng’s 6 th birthday celebration. 

 Others 

     • Craft Circle activity is scheduled on 27th . 

     • Pool Day on 19th . 

     • Gideon and Qian Ru joined us again. 

     • We will celebrate Deepavali in November, we encourage children to wear Indian Traditional Costumes to experience the festive mood. You may buy the costume          from The Little India in Georgetown. But if you have difficulties to get the costume, please let us know. We have a few costumes with limited size.

  2023 Harvest Festival Programme 

         Date:   13th October 2023 (Friday) 

         Venue: Nania 

Schedule: 

09:00 – 09:30am    Bread making (for snacks) & free play 

09:30 - 09.40am     Toilet Break 

09:40 – 10:10am    Japanese Class Presentation 

10:10 – 10:35am    English Class Presentation 

10:35 - 10.45am     Toilet Break 

10:45 – 11:05am     Snacks 

11:05 – 11:15am     Toilet Break & Puppet Show Preparation 

11:15 – 11:45am     Puppet Show 

11.45 – 11.55am     Goodbye song & gift (origami flower)

12:000pm               Goodbye till we meet again 

   As the children will be making bread for the morning snack, we request all parents to send your child/children by 8.50am. Please drop them at the Main Gate. 

   English Class parents can join us at 9.55am and please be on time. Please enter by the Main Gate and congregate at the car porch. 

   Please park your car at the parking lot of the Che Hoon Khor Moral Uplifting Society. 

 Children will have their snack inside while parents will have snack in the garden. 

   It is not necessary to bring school bags, water bottles or extra clothes. Maybe some young children will need a set of clothes. 

   It is sometimes difficult for young children to join in the festival’s presentation because of the crowd. We encourage mothers to sing together with their younger            children to support their participation. 

   Children will go home with parents after the cerebration. There will be no day care on that day.