The “Dragon Boat Festival”.

Thursday (02/06/2011)

a) The Vote
• The kids brainstormed on new topics to learn. The choices were i) Barbie Doll, ii) Games and Exercise, iii) Insects, iv) Flowers. The kids wanted characters such as “Superman, Ultraman, Spiderman and also Ben 10 Alien Force”.
• We talked about the violent and cartoons and the impact. Example: Where is Ultraman when there’s Tsunami? Of course, they are characters created for story purpose but not in reality.
• We brainstormed about the possibility of each topic. Xing Tong wanted Barbie Dolls. Jun Yu proposed insects. Wee Hong suggested flowers. In the end 4 voted for Barbie Dolls, 12 voted for games and exercise while 2 for insects and 2 for flowers.
• The kids opted for dance, magical tricks, badminton, basketball among a few.

b) The “Dragon Boat Festival”.
*We sat in a big circle. I asked kids questions about what they have learnt about Rice Dumpling Festival from the morning lessons. Then, I sang the song “Row, row, row your boat modifying to the lyrics of Qu Yuan”. When I stopped singing, the person holding the toy object would have to say something about the festival.
Qian Joe: It’s about a smart man called Qu yuan.
Xing Tong: He tied a rock onto his leg and jumped into the river.
Chun Kit: The people threw zongzi into the river so that fish won’t eat its dead body.
Teacher: What do people do on this day?
Kids: people eat zong zi.
Teacher: Why then is there Dragon Boat Festival?

c) The Legend of “Qu Yuan”.
• Qu Yuan was a trusted and intelligent minister who helped the King and people a lot. However, other ministers got jealous and set up a trap for him. The King believed them and expelled him out from the country. He was so sad and started writing lots of poems and stories to express his feelings and thoughts. When his country lost to the hands of enemies, he felt very sad and committed suicide. Some believed he did that as a sign of protest for the very corrupted government. Then, the society quickly threw rice into “Milou River” so that the hungry fish will not bite Qu Yuan’s dead body. However, at night, one man dreamt of Qu Yuan who said that the fierce dragon was the one that ate the rice. Qu Yuan suggested that they wrapped the rice into triangle shape so as to scare away the dragon. The next day, the people followed his instructions. They rowed in a boat while throwing the dumplings.
• Thus every 5th day of 5th month of Chinese Lunar Calendar, the Chinese celebrate Dumpling Festival and Dragon Boat Festival.

d) Video Clips: Dragon Boat
• We watched video clips and saw how people row the dragon boat with team spirit. Unity is very important as any arguments will affect their competition. There is a drummer at the back of the boat and paddlers will paddle fast when the drum beat is fast. There is a sweep in front and he gives instructions of the boat directions. A long boat has got 40 paddlers while small boat has got 20 paddlers.

e) Craft: Dragon Boat.
• Each kid was given a picture of Dragon Boat and they coloured beautifully. We shall cut these and paste onto our origami tomorrow.