weaving the rainbow

Wednesday, September 26, 2007 ;

11:51 AM

25 Sept 2007

Tues
Mid-Autumn Festival

Well, there is no atmosphere here of course, no mooncakes and no lanterns, very sad... But I have always celebrated it every year so I needed to create something for my kids.

[Morning in preschool: ds1 has a classmate whom he had a playdate with, I mentioned her before. She has a French dad, Taiwanese mom, but she was born in New York and entirely American. However her mom is keen on her learning the Chinese culture too, so her mom brought lots of mooncakes, traditional and snowskin ones to school today. So nice of her. Cos I don't know where she got them. It must be awfully expensive or maybe she imported them from Taiwan. I didn't get to eat them of course (me and ds2 not part of the class), and silly ds1 said he doesn't like them. I was like, hey, give me the leftovers, I don't mind! :-) So at least ds1 got to learn and enjoy with his friends a little today, which is really rare over here. Hooray for Naia's mom!]

Since there are many moms out there with kids my age who might also be somewhere in the world without access to authentic mooncakes or pretty lanterns, I decided to post this "lesson plan" which I put together and hope maybe it can be of use to others as well.

This "lesson" was not conducted in a continuous flow, just pick and choose what you want. More like a list of activities and resources about the festival that you can compile into a lesson plan.

Target age group: 2-4 years old

(I let ds2 join in too, but he mainly just doodled and messed around, which is fine. He is absorbing some of it somehow, at the least through diffusion. Just kidding.)

Song (music and movement, and some counting/ math):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ Tweenies Go Round the Moon. There're lyrics and the song there.
CLick on tweenies then click on songs or just input the song title in the search. I couldn't get the link to work here.

Book (Math/ Shapes, English poetry):

1. "Round is a Mooncake: A book of shapes." Can get it from amazon.com

Excerpt: "Round is a mooncake, Round is the moon, Round are the lanterns, outside my room. Round is a pebble, that I found. A bowl of goldfish, that makes no sound."

2. "Rabbit Mooncakes" by Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer : more for older children, and is about how the Vietnamese celebrate this same festival.

3. "Moonbeams, Dumplings & Dragon Boats: A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities & Recipes" by Nina Simonds (Author), Leslie Swartz (Author), Boston The Children's Museum (Author), Meilo So (Illustrator): the part on mooncakes tells kids how you can put different fillings into mooncakes, and talks about the full moon too.

4. "The Moon Lady" by Amy Tan (Author), Gretchen Schields (Illustrator): This book has a famour author... :-) I read her Joy Luck Club before. It doesn't really relate to MAF actually, but it is a good read. Teaches kids not to be whiny, to slow down, not always be so restless/ impatient, to be careful what you wish for.. The reference to Moon Festival is there, and it does talk about preparations for the festival.

5. "Moon Festival" by Ching Yeung Russell (Author), Christopher Zhong-Yuan Zhang (Illustrator): supposed to be for ages 4-8. I haven't read this, not sure if it's good, but it is relevant.

6. "Thank You, Meiling" by Linda Talley (Author), Itoko Maeno (Illustrator): title doesn't say much, but it is a story about a duck who accompanies a boy to buy lanterns, mooncakes and so on for MAF. Teaches manners and the phases of the moon also.

7. "Mr Ming and the Mooncake Dragon" by Kathy Creamer: thanks to Dory for adding this. Not found on amazon.com but UK's amazon only. It's set in Singapore!

Science/ nature:

1. http://www.earthsky.org/radioshows/51677/harvest-moon-lights-up-autumn-nights#c004705: Besides info about why the moon is so full and round during this time every year, it also explains MAF is sometimes called Harvest Moon Festival cos the moon is so bright and shines all night that people in the past used the moonlight to collect their harvest.

2. http://www.thenazareneway.com/current_moon_phase.htm: Brief explanation of the moon phases.

3. http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/index.html: Telling the kids men have also reached the moon.

Cookery/ food tasting:

1. (simple recipe for those without access to Phoon Huat, sob sob. I used to love to make snow-skin mooncakes and would make a lot for giving others too. Now can't get ingredients so cannot make also. Caution: this recipe would make mooncakes that are not traditional and won't look like the actual thing, but at least something you can try with the kids.)
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/china/easy_chinese_mooncakes.htm

2. Recipes for various mooncakes, but access to Phoon Huat seems required, when I took a look at the ingredients. http://www.kitchenlink.com/mf/3/4383

Legends of MAF:
1. http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/midfallstory.htm: Chang-E, Wu Kang, Jade Rabbit, Mooncake "origins". In brief and simplified.

2. http://www.hkedcity.net/resources/common/res_detail.phtml?res_cntr_id=17535: HK's Educational TV, which can be downloaded. I haven't used it yet on kids, but it looks very promising.

Art and Craft:
1. http://www.abcteach.com/china/lantern.htm: Making a simple lantern
2. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/chinesenewyear/lantern/: same as above
3. Can also make origami rabbits and print out black and white diagrams from the internet for kids to colour or draw.

A blog that I found has many links and resources. It has interesting ways for kids to learn Chinese and also contains a lot of other Chinese facts/ stories. http://mus-mandarin.blogspot.com/

Chinese poetry and stories:
1. http://www.chinapage.com/Moon/moon-poetry.html: has many poems about the moon, including the famous Li Bai one. But the font was too small, so I didn't print them out.
2. http://www.cnd.org/moon/: More Moon poetry in Chinese.
3. http://www.sacu.org/poetry.html: I used this for the kids, as in, I printed this out.

Finally, the one thing I always use at the end of lessons.... YouTube video clips.
Why use only at the end? The videos are alive, they are colourful and stimulate the kids the most... hearing, sight etc... If I use them first, they'll not be interested in writing or reading all that I offer above.

True enough, they were glued to several of these video clips below and watched them repeatedly. I didn't mind, cos their Mandarin speaking skills are so poor, they need more exposure.

We adults have to view everything first though, because there are just too many versions of the stories/ legends, and you may not believe or like some of them. Some of them, like one about Hou Yi being mean and killing many people, you may not like your young child to watch. So... screen them first. :-)

Video clips:
1. http://youtube.com/watch?v=_sqlHzkCZu4: Legend of MAF using clay figurines, very creative but done by Westerner so pronunciation of the CHinese names not very accurate.
2. http://youtube.com/watch?v=PBpT0sZppc8: This is most comprehensive. Done by students as their project, and is quite funny too. I like the ending. Gives different legends.
3. http://youtube.com/watch?v=P9iO2eUKb6E: I like the graphics, but you may want to do your own narration cos the accent is rather difficult to make out here. Hou Yi kills people here.
4. http://youtube.com/watch?v=lwIxmR31TV4: Nice music and great images, so I use it and narrate it myself to educate kids about the various Chinese items. Has mooncakes, lanterns and some Chinese words.
5. http://youtube.com/watch?v=kCVzBc6BMkM: Should be Taiwanese, cos accent sounds like that. Cute, but if you are short on time, you can fast forward the whole intro part (a bit lame). Second part has drawings and written story.
6. http://youtube.com/watch?v=dFaP_pB2yME: This is just a commercial for Cartoon Network, but it contains well-known CHinese phrases and kids like the cartoons.
7. http://youtube.com/watch?v=s4hTuIyLeUw: This is more for adults, slow Chinese music. But I placed it here still, cos it has Chinese poems, scenes of China, moon orbit in space, autumn scenery, just in case you want kids to know more.
8. http://youtube.com/watch?v=pvToK9c7NUU: This is the most detailed, and I like it because it has English, Hanyu Pinyin, and CHinese words. However, you may also want to turn off the narration after you've watched it and do your own. It also contains CHinese opera on Chang-E, and images of all varieties of mooncakes.

I also, without a doubt, searched for Hwa CHong's videos of this year's MAF celebrations since this year will be the 1st time in maybe 13 years that I've missed it. Surprise surprise, besides the videos of light-up, the stalls and the mass singing, I chanced upon all the Mass DAnce videos too.

If only I had those when I was in JC1. Ahhhh, the nostalgia I felt as I watched all the mass dances... I liked Electric Dreams a lot when I was in JC cos it was one of the easiest, and then Wild Wild West was most memorable cos it was the dance my CT class chose for the inter-CT mass dance competition, so we kind of spent more time learning that. Kudos to the 33rd SC's ECACO for coming up with those, cos all the steps are so clear and anyone can go revise if they forgot. Yay, I can even dance it with dh from here! hee hee.

dh was from S2 last time, 2 years my senior. Never met him in JC though, he was in NS when I entered. But cos of that, we had lots of mutual friends. There were a lot of times I met his friends and they knew me too. One interesting unexpected example: went with dh to his quartet rehearsal I think, and his friend plays in the SSO. Then his friend, who already knows I was from hc also, like both of them, asked me which year and class I was from, cos I look very familiar. When I told him, he said, oh! No wonder, his CT's class bench was also in the left wing and was very near mine, even though he was 1 year my senior and from a totally different faculty (not S7). Then instantly, everyone got bonding, cos then i knew some pple from his class and vice versa. And then CCA friends etc etc.

Thus, when dh attends my class gatherings and I attend his, we always have lots to talk about too, with initially complete strangers... My Sec Sch Chinese Orchestra senior so happened to be in dh's JC class and was even someone he chased before! haha.

Anyway here's some HC MAF videos, not for the mummies lah, just for my reference, for my students and maybe all my ex-classmates. (My JC best friend was from council too. :-))

1. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y_3SUm2hzLw: Light up
2. http://youtube.com/watch?v=aciXzubfeSQ: PA/AVA's video demo. Law!!!! I want a copy!!!
3. http://youtube.com/watch?v=MPnREwl6Pjk: Mass singing

3 of my fav mass dances (although i loved all lah):
1. Wild wild west: http://youtube.com/watch?v=F3_JzjRLcRE
2. Together in Electric Dreams: http://youtube.com/watch?v=A3IE30jC8yU
3. I've got my mind set on you: http://youtube.com/watch?v=yDSlHuIj7Io

Off to listen to the mass dance music and dance with my kids until dh returns! He got rehearsal tonight! :-)

rainbows every day, do not worry for the morrow
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