The Old Folks’ Home

Wednesday (23/02/2011)

a) Change of plan.
• This coming Friday, we shall be visiting the Old Folks’ Home and then the Orphanage. The reason is due to many orphans are busy preparing for their exams and it’s difficult to get all of them together when we visit them. Our school kids have been longing to perform. They might be disappointed when the orphans don’t give them much attention after all their hard work from bringing charitable items, selling, discussion and finally the preparation before visiting the organization.
• We shall depart at 3pm and be back before 5.30 p.m.

b) About Old Folks’ Home.
Qian Joe: I think they live in a place like the orphans.
Chun Kit: They are for old people.
Teacher: Why do they live there?
Class: They have no children. They have no money. Their children might be sick. Their parents have passed away……
• We discussed briefly reasons which included unloving children, accidents that claim the old folks’ family and poor families. They were listening very attentively.
• It must be difficult for kids to understand this concept as they have just learnt about orphans a few weeks ago. “We don’t want our parents to live in Old Folks’ Home. We love them!”…….was the class response! Thus, love and good qualities must be instill from young.

c) What to share?
Xing Tong: let’s make rabbit origami for them.
Chun Kit: Let’s make a present.
Qian joe: Let’s make a love for them.
Zhe Qing: We can feed them with food like what we did for our school aunty last year.
Kwong Yong: they can eat vegetables.
Teacher: What if they have few teeth left? …..(mischevious kids started giggling)
Zheng Yuan: Bread…… Shawn: cake……… Chun Kit: grapes
Xiang Wei: Fruits…….. Kwong Yong: Herbal tea…… Jun Yu: orange juice.
Tzen Yu: Let’s massage them.
• Everyone started massaging me and themselves.
Yun Xin: We must not sing loudly.
Xing Jing: We massage them lightly.
Zhi Feng: we can perform Lion dance for them.
Yee Xuan: Let’s sing “I love you”.
Yun Xin: We can do riddles.
• When I asked volunteers for riddles, nobody dared to try. Zhe Qing suggested a story. Immediately, the kids pointed to the story of “The rabbit and the tortoise”.
• Kwong Yong, Rei, Xing Tong ad Zhe Qing volunteered. They spoke 12 short sentences with some prompting from me. The second round, I didn’t help them…….they are so cute and smart. 

d) The Practice
• As there is a bigger space at The Old Folks’ Home, we decided to perform 6 lions altogether. Thus 6 kids from Pomegranate and another 6 from Soya Bean class. @ as little monks from each class. The kids are quite independent and the singing is better. However, they like shouting when singing. Reminding them that we’re singing for old folks, they started singing softly…….but it sounded sleepy…….haaaa! Kids being kids 