Nicholas's School Update #17

This week, the teacher engaged the children in activities revolving around the Mid-Autumn Festival theme. New words such as moon cake, lantern, pomelo, autumn, lunar and festival were introduced as well. The definitions that we explained are listed below:

· Moon cakes are Chinese pastries traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival / Zhongqiu Festival. Typical moon cakes are round or rectangular pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick. A thick filling usually made from lotus seed paste is surrounded by a relatively thin (2-3 mm) crust and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs.

· The pomelo tastes like a sweet, mild grapefruit, though the typical pomelo is much larger in size than the grapefruit. It has very little, or none, of the common grapefruit's bitterness.

· Autumn (also known as fall in American English) is one of the four temperate seasons. Autumn marks the transition from summer into winter, usually in March (Southern Hemisphere) or September (Northern Hemisphere) when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier.

· A lantern is a portable lighting device used to illuminate broad areas. Lanterns may also be used for signaling, to guide your path somewhere or as general light sources for camping. In the older days it would have been used like a torch. Dim varieties are often used for decoration.

· Lunar (Luna) is the Latin word for Moon

· A festival is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community.

Sometimes I did question myself if the kids can gasped the definition and thus, I tried asking Nicholas some of the words the day I received this email and hey! He is able to tell me the meaning using his own words!

Back to the school update, they made cinnamon toast and the children were able to spread the margarine evenly onto the sliced bread, sprinkled the mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon and waited patiently as the delicious treats were slowly toasted in the toaster oven.

See how my boy sit! Aiyo, with one leg up on the table...terrible!

He still needs a lot of work to improve his griping skill.

The centre celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival on Friday evening. It was a wonderful event with plenty of food, fun and laughter! The children enjoyed themselves as they participated in the treasure hunt using their lanterns as a light source.