Indonesia 72nd Independence Day
30 August 2017
“Merdeka!” We finally said “the magic word” this year. It’s a wonderful moment that we were celebrating 72nd anniversary of Indonesia’s Independence Day today. To commemorate the heroes who fought for our beloved country, we held a flag ceremony in the sunny morning. With the spirit of nationalism, the children gathered and joined the flag ceremony at the backyard. They watched a group of children raising the red and white flag while they were loudly singing a National Anthem, Indonesia Raya.
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After Indonesian flag fluttered in the sky, the children seemed to be very happy and ready to follow the next activity in which they could participate in some competitions. They could not wait to show their abilities in winning the games provided, such as cracker eating race, marble race, water bottle refiling race, candy finding race, ball transferring race and coloring competition.
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“So what are you waiting for?” “Let’s get it started”. One of the most interesting games which they waited for was the cracker eating race. In this game, the children should race to be the first to finish eating the crackers which were hung upon a thread at the lunch area. It’s very exciting to watch the children struggling to eat the crackers, especially when the crackers kept moving.
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While some of the children were racing to eat the crackers, the other children were competing to throw some wooden rings in the bottles at the front yard. They showed their focus and tried hard to throw the rings so they could hit the target. Well, it’s not easy but they kept trying until one of them won the game. “Good job, guys!”
After having fun with the games, the children faced another challenge in the marble race. They should put a marble on the spoon and tried not to drop it until they reached the finish line, then put it in the basket. They showed their enthusiasm in playing the game, especially when someone succeeded in putting the marble in the basket and everyone clapped their hands soon after that. “Hurray!”
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While some of the children were joining the marble race, the other children were enthusiastically finding some candies in a plastic big bucket filled with small plastic balls. They raced to collect the candies as many as they could. They seemed to feel very excited when they found the candies in the container. “Cheer up, guys!”
Succeeding in completing the challenge, the children then played the last game in which they splashed some paint on the pictures pasted on the trees while the other children raced to move some balls from one basket to another one. They took the balls one by one, ran around some obstacles and put the balls in the basket. They ran and ran. They did not stop until they moved all of the balls. After that, they raced to refill the water bottle using sponges. They put the sponges in the big container filled with water, ran and squeezed it to refill the water bottles. They kept running. They absolutely never gave up. “Well done, guys!”
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Holding a flag ceremony and participating in the competitions, the children could learn some moral values. They learned more about the spirit of nationalism. They sang “Indonesia Raya” as the National Anthem and Hari “Merdeka” which could enhance their sense of patriotism. Additionally, they learned about being fair, determined, persistent, and other positive manners through complying with the challenges of the games. Last but not least, they had a lot of fun as they followed the activities, which could stimulate their physical development, language development, cognitive development, social and emotional development as the four areas of development which are very important to be developed and assessed in our school. “Thank you for your contribution and see you next year.” (TS)