Sugar Cane

Wednesday (01/02/2012)

a) My favourite word.
· We read through the vocabulary list for 2 times. Then, each kid came forward to choose their favourite word and teach their fiends. Example: Yi Han chose “dog”, Xiang Wei chose “fire crackers” and Kai Song chose “cookies”. They were rather good at word recognition.

b) Jade Emperor’s Birthday
· The kids came forward to share about their favourite time during the night celebration of Jade Emperor’s celebration. Some talked about fire crackers while mostly talked about sugar cane. It was awesome to know that most kids asked their parents for the answer of my question, “Why do Hokkien Chinese offer sugar cane to Jade Emperor”.
· Yee Xuan, Shawn, Rei and also Xiang Wei came forward to share.
Yee Xuan: My father said the sugar cane protected the Chinese from armies.
Shawn: They were bad people and the sugar cane protected the Hokkiens.
· Then, I told them the legend. Once upon a time, a group of powerful armies were greedy at power. They conquered every state that they could and when they reached Hokkien province, the Hokkien Chinese quickly ran and hid in the sugar cane plantation as they had nowhere else to hide. Magically, the armies didn’t see them and with that, Hokkiens believed that Jade Emperor had saved them. Thus, we offer sugar cane on Jade Emperor’s birthday.

c) About sugar cane.
· Our school has got purple sugar canes……which is different from the green ones. The green sugar cane is the one offered and it can be chew or blended for its delicious sugar cane juice. The purple one needs to be boiled and it reduces our body heat.
· Howver, both types have got similar leaves. We went to the garden to observe and touch the leaves. Then, we went back into our class to chop some green sugar canes. The kids chewed the small pieces. Then, we also blended the balance to see and feel the difference. The kids love to drink juice rather than chewing them…J