The Holiday Season

Simbang Gabi: Philippines

In America, people complain about the holiday shopping season starting earlier and earlier each year. But Christmas in the Philippines starts with the "Ber" months! That's right, SeptemBER is the first of four months to get decked out in lights and covered in parols (star lanterns).     

"I'd like to believe our country celebrates the longest Christmas season...ever. Everyone is excited when the 'Ber Months' hit us." - Carmine Dinglasan, Manila

 

As the "Ber" months wind down and the anticipated day nears, Simbang Gabi begins. Starting on December 16th and continuing for 9 days until Christmas Eve, churches across the archipelago open their doors at the break of dawn and invite in the masses to worship. Young children, teenagers, adults, and elders alike gather at 4am to partake in Simbang Gabi. Locals say that the fun part of Simbang Gabi is that if you complete 9 straight masses without missing any, you get to make a wish! After mass the streets are filled with food stalls selling yummy treats like puto bumbong (sticky rice) and bibingka (rice cake). Pictured to the right, a girl from Manila offers her guest bibingka while a parol glows in the background.  
Summer Time Christmas: Australia                            

The sun Down Under sure isn't shy around Christmas time in Australia. While much of the world is still searching for Frosty's carrot nose lost in the snow,this country in the Southern Hemisphere is in prime time summer. Most Aussies happily trade a fire for a fan, roast bird for a seafood feast, and reindeers for kangaroos. It's common for fish markets to have a line out the door on Christmas Eve and for families to celebrate Christmas outdoors. Camping, beach side BBQ's, and lounging riverside are typical ways to spend Christmas in Australia.   

"I love Christmas when it's hot. You lot are truly missing out" 

- Kellie Newstead, South Australia

  

Though Santa may swap his thick red coat for bordies and a hot roast gets kicked to the side to make way for fresh fish, Christmas in Australia has common roots to the United Kingdom. This means Christmas trees fill town squares and carols fill the warm night air. 

 

Carp for Christmas: The Czech Republic and Poland

Old Town Square: Prague, Czech Republic

In Central Europe carp is a delectable dish served up for Christmas Eve dinner. Carp is a fresh water fish that is often bought live days before the Christmas feast and is kept alive in the bath tub! The scales of the fish are then used in many superstitious ways to bring good fortune for the following year. Carp scales are hidden underneath plates to bring money and people put a scale or two in their wallets to carry all year. 

"It doesn't mean we love fish so much but this is our traditional Christmas dish. Perhaps once upon a time we needed to find a way to get rid of all the carp in our ponds." 

- Ondra Burda, Prague

However your family rejoices, whether you decorate a palm, pine, or tree of plastic, Christmas is a special time to gather with family and partake in your favorite traditions. Share these international Christmas traditions with your friends and family. Do you have a special way to enjoy Christmas or know of a fun way other countries celebrate? Tell us about it!

No matter what country we are from or where we spend Christmas, our Dutch friend sums it up nicely:

"We celebrate by visiting friends and family and being in their company, celebrating their friendship, and the fact that we are together. It is a moment of standing still in the world that goes by around us." - Toine Sterk, The Netherlands

Activities

 

1) Have an International Holiday

Clearly, there are many ways to ring in the holidays. Add a little spice to your holidays and combine a tradition from another country in with your own. Here are some ideas:

 
• Hide the Scales: Surprise your dinner guests with a fish scale under their plate. At the end of the meal announce that each person has a special treat under their plate and tell them about the tradition from Central Europe. If you don't have any scales handy (which most of us don't) create your own using translucent paper and color pencils. 
   
• Sing Australian Carols: Adaptations had to be made to "Frosty the Snowman" and "White Christmas." Learn the words to an Australian carol such as "Six White Boomers," a song about Santa's kangaroos. Perform this for your friends and family in true holiday spirit. 
   
• Build a Filipino Parol: The streets of Filipino towns are filled with parols that light the streets. Traditional parols are made from bamboo lining and thick tissue paper, most commonly in the shape of a star to represent the guiding star that led the Three Kings to the manger. Parols come in all shapes and sizes and Little Passports has a fun and easy way for you to make your own. Visit their Facebook page for instructions on how to create a parol of your own!
   

2) Map Activity
 
Can you find these countries on the map?

• Slovakia

• The Netherlands

• The Philippines

• Belgium

• Australia
   

3a) Bonus Questions:

1) Is Australia the only continent that lies ENTIRELY in the Southern     Hemisphere?

2) Do you know where the original Santa Claus comes from?

3) When does Santa Claus come to town? (HINT: It's not December 25th)

4) Is Simbang Gabi in the Philippines reserved only for families? 

3b) Bonus Answers:

1) No, Australia is not the only continent entirely in the Southern Hemisphere, Antarctica is there too! Additionally, most of South America and the bottom half of Africa are also in the Southern Hemisphere.

2) While many Canadians claim Santa as one of their own, St. Nicholas of Myra is from modern day Turkey.

3) St. Nicholas comes to towns across Europe on December 5th or December 6th in honor of his names day (12/6). The Netherlands and the Czech Republic celebrate St. Nicholas on the 5th, while Belgium celebrate on the 6th. Children in the Netherlands and Belgium write letters to Sinterklaas while children in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia write to Mikulás (American children write to Santa Clause).

4) No! Simbang Gabi is celebrated amongst friends and family alike. Groups of young people gather together to attend mass and then hit the street for the yummy food stalls together.


These fun facts were compiled by http://littlepassports.com/.

National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week

In the US this week it is National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week.

This information is from the California Poison Control System.

Children are most commonly exposed to lead by eating paint chips or dirt that is contaminated with lead.

“Lead poisoning is an important cause of learning disabilities, anemia, as well as growth problems, and children exposed to lead may have attention and aggression problems.” - Dr. Richard Geller, Executive Medical Director for the CPCS. 

To prevent lead poisoning, children should wash their hands frequently, wash their toys often and eat a diet high in iron and calcium.  
Children who are undernourished can absorb more lead into their bodies than children with well balanced diets.  

1. Make sure your children do not chew on painted surfaces, such as toys or window sills.
2. Children's necklaces and bracelets, adult watches, as well as religious jewelry from Mexico, have been found to contain lead.
3. Keys frequently have small amounts of lead in them – do not let babies play with or teethe on your keychain..
4. Folk medicines (especially home remedies) imported from another country also contain lead. These include: pay-loo-ah (fever and rash treatment); azarcon (also called Maria Luisa, Liga, Alarzon, Greta, Coral and Rueda); Asian folk remedies, including Ghasard, Bali Goli and Kandu; and Middle Eastern folk remedies, including farouk and bint al zahab.

Customizeable Color Sheet Printables

I was just introduced to http://twistynoodle.com/ , a website with free printable worksheets and 

coloring pages for Early Years.

You can customize the text of the coloring sheet and select different fonts. 

One of the choices is D'Nealian, which is a good begining handwriting font.

I am having fun with this!

Peace One/International Day Coming Up!

We would like to encourage your child to wear his/her national dress for this special Peace One/International Day next Tuesday morning, September 21st.

For the afternoon, however, please be sure that your child has his/her VIS sport t-shirt available for the soccer tournament, as they will be divided into house teams.

This day will be big and extremely 'out of routine' for our little ones. Should you have the chance to make yourself available to EY for that day, we encourage you to stay; particularly for the break, international lunch, and soccer tournament. Yes! our little one are part of the BIG game and there will be lots of great photo opportunities throughout the day.

You can find more details about this special day's event in last week's Dragon Tales.

Our Goodbye Songs

Every afternoon we sing a series of goodbye songs to end the school day. We're sure you may have heard the odd melody being hummed in the back of the car :) One of the songs is call 'Goodbye My Friends Goodbye'. We try to make sure we have included every child's language throughout the week; however, we are still missing a few vocabulary. Please help us by posting or emailing the words for "goodbye" and "my friends" in your mother-tongue, preferably with the phonetic pronunciation for us :)

Thank you in advance!

Online Resources For Preschool Education

On Open Night, I mentioned having several recommended websites with free educational resources for Early Years students. 
Here are a few of my favorites, and the favorites of other EY teachers I met in Singapore during a recent professional development conference.


http://www.starfall.com - preschool appropriate early literacy games. The "ABC's" section is best for EY learners. 


http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html - free printables and craft ideas on a variety of searchable topics. You can print these for free with a small ad at the bottom of the page, or pay a yearly membership fee to print without the add.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/ - online maths and literacy games, best for ages 5 and 6.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks/ - activities based on BBC Alphablocks.


http://www.pbskids.org - online games based on favorite TV characters like Calliou, Fireman Sam, Elmo, and Curious George.

Playdough

Thank you all for helping Early Years keep a healthy and constant fresh supply of play dough. Please be sure to mark your calendars with your personal play dough delivery time.

Here is the recipe:

It is important that the dough is thoroughly cooked to avoid it going moldy too soon. Also be very meticulous about the measurements of the ingredients, especially if you are doubling the amount! don't forget to double the salt! - something that has happen too often to me :) Please be reminded that we need the play-dough for both classrooms, EY3 & 4 so you will need to the double amount.

A few tips:

• teach you home helpers how to make it :)
• add some essence such as mint, or orange :)
• be creative with the colouring - i.e. mix red and blue to make purple :)
• throw in some glitter :)
• use a blender to make the mixture!

FAQ's

What flour should be use?

Any! some people even use rice flour for children with gluten sensitivity; however, we do not have that problem in EY this year.

Where can I find cream of tartar, and food colouring?

I suggests any time you head to Tesco Lotus, you stock up on it from there. You will find it in the aisle with the backing items in the rack with food extracts, jello, and jams. Both cream of tartar and food colouring are in the same space.

Should I use a specific kind of oil?

No, no specific type, however it's best to choose something that do not have a strong smell. Sunflower oil is quite neutral, but the cheap palm oil works fine also. I wouldn't use olive oil, though.

At what point do I add the colour?

Add the food colouring to the blended mixture before cooking.

Hope this helps! Happy workout!

(the mixing gets tough towards the end and makes a good arm workout :)

In case you are wondering - this is cream of tartar :)

Show n' Tell is a great way for children to be exposed to presenting information as well as learning what it means to be a good audience. This has become a very popular moment of the day! Please encourage your child to participate by reminding them of their turn and choosing appropriate items to bring and present. Show n' tell is also a great opportunity for the children to bring in something related to the current unit of inquiry 'Who We Are'.

Ideas For Packing Morning Snack

The EY students have snack each day at 9:30.
To help them to be prepared to engage in learning activities in the later part of the morning, we recommend that snacks be healthful and nutritious.
Also, a personal preference of mine is to limit carbohydrates so that the child still has an appetite for lunch at 11:30.
Here are a few snacks from EY3 for your inspiration.

Cucumbers, half sandwich, whole orange

Fruit and veggies

Dried fruit, raw carrots, chopped fresh pineapple.

Don't be afraid to send a new food and do some trial-and-error. If the cucumber slices keep coming back untouched, try something else!
If they eat only pears and carrot sticks, well, it won't last forever.

Welcome to Early Years Days!

We are starting our first inquiry together!