Hello my dear Hiveian...how are you doing?
I'm coming back with few glimpse of my daughter's interesting experiences in her new home.
Two weeks ago my daughter's school has organized a Literacy Event for the students from grade 1 to grade 3 called "Reading Month Celebration". The objective is to boost and to promote the passion and interest of children in reading books.
I don't know much about Philippine but I have to admit that in my own home country "reading books" are not something popular there.
The last few years there were already some positive development, neverthless you really can't compare the situation of libraries and bookstores in Eurepe and Indonesia.
In order to teach my daughter my mother language and introduce our culture I wanted to buy some children books in indonesian but it was so difficult to find children book which have a quality comparable to those in Eurepe (the english and german ones). There are surely some, but the option range is really small and the material quality also needs lots of improvement.
How could they produce books for children under 3 years old with such thin paper?!
They will definitely be torn in no time.
Reading books for children before bedtime is not considered habit there either (perhaps only among scholarly families).
I have a strong passion in reading since I was a child. Despite being poor and never been given much pocket money by my parent, didn't earn much either after finally going into society...but I basically spent at least half of my money in renting many kind of books in book rental cos the school and public library didn't provide enough to satisfy my thirst in this aspect :-D.
I didn't have much saving exactly because of this hobby of mine LOL.
My father may only finished elementary school, but he had managed to teach me how to read very well when I was 4, and I already read newspaper with him since I was 5.
Hence I was also proud that I managed to accomplish the same thing with my little daughter _. Yes, newspaper was the only reading materials my father ever spent money for except for school materials for his children.
Why renting? Because buying books was even less affordable for me.
My family was lacking money so that they couldn't send their children to university, neverthless I was still feel lucky that they tried their very best to give good education for their children, especially when many of my little comrades in my village stopped going to school after 15 and getting married.
I must say..I have already been very curious about the how the life, culture and nature in reality are in the other corners of the world since I was in elementary school ...especially after finishing another adventurous books of Enid Blyton, Alfred Hitchcock, Agatha Christie etc. I always thought that the world described in those book would remain a fantasy in my life.
Little did I know that one day I really have the chance to see them with my own eyes :).
People should indeed let themselves dream sometimes eh...?!
Cos some dreams can really come true one day, or better to say...you can certainly do something to make it come true _.
Anyway...
When I first came in Germany I was surprised to see that nearly everyone in the bus, tram or train holding a book and was so engrossed in reading. Those were really quite a mesmerizing sight for me cos you would never see such things in my country, not even in the park or any rather quite public spaces available there.
These days such a sight is unfortunately changed into "holding smartphone or tablet", I can only hope that most of them would at least use it to open some e-Book library instead of scrolling up social media accounts only LOL.
Well, enough with the reminiscence... I should go back to our main topic again now :).
So, I have to say that I'm really glad the school I chose for my daughter paid attention in this aspect and passionately organizing such events to promote literacy to little children.
In this event the children should wear costume inspired by characters from their favourite books and each class would send 2 representatives to perform their literary talent.
My daughter and one of her classmate were chosen to do a story telling.
The chosen story was a popular Aesop fable called "The boy who cried wolf".
The children from the higher grade were required to present poem recital and declamation.
I was so excited because it's not reading a book but reciting the story with the matching gesture, mimic and emotion. That's quite challenging for a little child at their age, and english is not even their mother language.
She did well in every rehearsal at home but I couldn't help being nervous and worried that she might experience a black out on the stage. This kind of incident could even happen to adults afterall, let alone a child like her.
But She Did It!!!
I couldn't share too many pictures here even if I do really want it out of my excitement, but I should definitely show you some of the most interesting performance and costume.
The stage
Daddy @jaki01 was dragged out of his cave to cheer on his daughter :-D. This picture was made before the show started. We didn't know yet that the chairs were actually reserved for the children. Parents are expected to stand behind or sit on the concrete benches at the side of the court.
Just like most folks in other asian countries the Philippines are very patriotic, so the hymne singing will always be the opening ceremony in nearly every school event here.
The children was lining up to do a little parade before the performance begun.
Below are the teachers mainly responsible to organize the event. The right one is Jana's homeroom teacher. She's still very young but one can see that she loves children. The schoolers at her class love her and always give her a hug before going home everyday. Something very interesting to underline here: the teacher is really dedicated to the job.
She created a chat group in messenger with the guardians to send a reminder of the necessary school materials and book needed for the next day as well as the assignment given to the children every single day and make an overview of the lessons plus activities done with the children every weekend.
This makes the guardians's job easier, especially when your children are still negligent with their own school work or the parents are not attentive enough in supervising their children's learning progress at school :-D.
Finally some snapshots of Jana's performance!
The following pictures are showing the poem recital, declamation and few interesting costumes. Aside of granting acknowledgement certificate to the participants in the literacy talent presentation, they also give am honorary certificate to the children with most unique costumes :).
That's it for now and I will update you again with our new life in the Philippine soon. Thank you for checking out my blog and supporting me with your upvotes. Enjoy the rest of your days there wherever you are!