Chinese New Year Celebration Eis International Pre-school (Sentosa) February Newsletter 1st February 2017 Thank you for coming down for the respective Class Observation. We hope you had a chance to observe how the class activities are conducted and also able to see how your child participates in them. We are now into the last two months of the school’s academic year, Teachers and children will continue to play and spend time together. We hope to cherish these sweet memories with the children too. We would also like to inform that this month, the children from the west branch will be visiting Sentosa school to get familiar with the environment and also make friends with the children at Sentosa branch. Its looks like a busy February and we hope children will have loads of fun too. Dates to Remember in February Dear Parents, Date Day Event Remarks 2 Thu Chinese New Year Celebration @ West branch Children may come dressed in Chinese/any traditional costume or red/bright coloured home clothes 3 Fri Setsubun Celebration New Academic Year in April There was an error in the day mentioned in the yearly calendar and we apologise for the error. The correct information is as follows: The new academic year will start from Thursday, 6th April. Please take note of these changes & thank you for your kind understanding. On 3rd February(Fri), we will be celebrating Setsubun and hearing “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” (meaning Oni out! Happiness in!) as the children throw beans at the ‘demons’. Before this , during their Japanese craft activities, children have either made an ‘Oni mask’ or a special box/bag to hold the to hold the soybeans. Some teachers will be dressed as demons while the children will have fun chasing the demons away as they throw the beans at them. By throwing the beans, it symbolizes to cleanse away all the evil from the former year and drive away disease-bringing evil spirits for the year to come. Then, to be protected from illness during the year, children from N2 to K2 will eat some of the roasted soybeans as a treat – one for each year of their life plus one extra for the coming year. For safety reasons, N1 children will not be eating the roasted soybeans in school. Setsubun Celebration We will be celebrating Chinese New Year on 2nd February (Thu) at the West Branch. There will be morning assembly where teachers will share more about Chinese New Year and how it is celebrated. The children will sing the Chinese New Year song together while the teachers will be doing a paper puppet theatre on the twelve zodiac animals story and how the sequence of these animals came about. There will also be a performance by the lion dance troupe. They will perform and dance closely to the older children. They will keep a distant from the younger children so as not to scare them. They will start off with soft beating of the drums and clanging of the cymbals to familiarise the children before they start with their Lion Dance performance. Chinese New Year Celebration