On June 1st, the Chinese people celebrate Children's Day! Of course a kindergarten will prepare a grand celebration! Usually, the children's parents will be asked to particpate in the celebration. This year, because of the Hand, Foot and Mouth disease the parents are not allowed to visit the kindergarten.
The Hand, Foot and Mouth disease is spreading throughout China. Only young children are able to have this disease. It begins with a fever and cold like symtoms and they develop a rash. In one kindergarten 30+ children died from this disease. So the Chinese government has put a ban on visitors (even parents) going to kindergartens. The government has advised parents to keep the children at home as much as possible and not let them in public. Many kindergartens have been shut down because of the ban. In our area the majority of kindergarten's have been closed because we are near swamp lands. During the summer the threat of this disease is high. We live in an area that not only has many swamps, but also farm land. We have to be extremely careful. And there is always the threat that our kindergarten may be shut down.
Because of this we wanted to give the children an extra big celebration. Song lao shi asked me to prepare the day's activities. The children love the English program so much, so he wanted to make sure that the children did what they enjoy most.
So we had a carnaval! The teachers spent a full week preparing for this event! We had nine boothes. Each booth we played a different game. We seperated the boothes into two different sections. We had the Inside games and outside games.
Inside Boothes:
#1: Face Painting
#2: T-shirt drawing
#3: Making Pizza
#4: Ring toss
#5: Knock Down
Ouside Boothes:
#6: Spray Painting
#7: Water Sponges
#8: Balloon Games
#9: Water Balloons
Of course you can imagine how happy the children were! They had never seen anything like this! We gave them tickets which were color coded to match the booth. And they went to each booth to complete the task. After each task they were given a prize. The teachers made some of the prizes! We gave them tissue flowers, paper pin wheels, colored t-shirts, stickers, candy, balloon hats, and lots of kisses!
The two year old and the 3,4,and 5 year olds were in seperate groups. This is what the schedule looked like:
Xiao Ban (Olive Branch Class):
9:00- Outside Games
9:30- Bathroom
9:40- Water
9:50- Inside Games
10:20- Extra Time
10:30- Free Play (Bouncy House)
11:00- Sing and Dance
11:20- Break
11:30- Lunch
Da Ban (Oak Tree Class):
9:00- Inside Games
9:45- Bathroom and water break
10:00- Outside Games
10:45- Bathroom
11:00- Sing and Dance
11:30- Lunch
All the fesivities were recorded and will be put on DVD! It was a wonderful time and the Children were so happy! After we were finished with the carnaval we made our way into the lobby of the school (which is often used for big activities because it's a big space) and we stood in a circle and sang some of the children's favorite English songs.
We sang:
Good Morning
Rock Around the Mulberry Bush
If You're Happy and You Know it
Animal Sounds Down on The Farm
The Wheels on The Bus
I'm H-A-P-P-Y
Sing a Happy Song
Zippety Doo Dah
Do Re Mi
B-I-N-G-O
After Singing and Dancing we went to have lunch. The table was covered with Fruit! Apples, cherries, peaches, Watermelon, bananas, and some other Chinese fruits! Then they brought out this beautiful cake! It was four layers and said "Happy Children's Day" in Chinese characters! You can't imagine how beautiful the cakes are in China! And this one was one of the best! Then for lunch we had my favorite; bao zi! Yum Yum! But the children were too interested in the fruit and cake to eat regular old bao zi!
At the end of the day we gave them candy, and new clothes to wear home! The children were all smiles! They couldn't be more content or happy!