Family Day 2015

“One Goal, One Community, One Family” –

Different words that when used together would make up a very powerful statement. And this was the exact theme used by Little Harvard Academy during their very first FAMILY DAY for the Academic Year 2015 – 2016.

Dated 31^st of July, 2015, Friday, the event was scheduled at around 9 o’clock in the morning up to 12 noon. For this event, the staff decided to have a minimalist look so they just made the decorations plain and simple. The highlights were just the family pictures of each pupil posted on different areas of the school and of course the artworks of the Little Crimsons.

The families are divided into two teams – blue team and yellow team led by Teacher Demi and Teacher Kriszy respectively. 15 minutes before the scheduled start of the activity, families started to come at school. They were wearing tops according to the team color assigned to them. Once they arrived, they were asked to register on the first floor where Nurse Nicole provided them with their respective sticker names, team sticker bands and their photobooth stubs. They were assisted by Ate Abby and Ate Mhel after registration to proceed to the 2^nd floor hallway where they had their chance to showcase their beautiful smiles in LHA’s very own photobooth. Several props were prepared by the staff so that each family can also use it for each shot. The families had 3 photobooth stubs to use the whole day.

After the photobooth, families were asked to proceed to the Activity Area on the 3^rd floor where each family has seen the hard work of each kid since all artworks were displayed inside the area.  The Activity Area looked like a museum of beautiful creations made by the little artistic hands of the kids. At around 9:30 AM, the attendance was already complete hence the program started early.

 With the opening prayer led by Daddy Gail and Mommy Sab of Summer from N2, the program officially started. It marked the beginning of fun – filled event. Then Ms. Katherine Chua gave her opening remarks to welcome everyone. After delivering her short but very meaningful message, the kids have prepared an interpretation of the song “I Can”. The kids practiced it for weeks and everything is worth it. After the kids’ presentation, an ice breaker followed.

The Master of Ceremonies for that day was no other than Teacher Grace. She explained the ice breaker of the day and that was the “Who’s who?” The staff has prepared beforehand a sketch of each kid’s body figure which the kids have hand - painted themselves and it was posted on the walls during the event.

The parents must guess which body figure was their own kid. They were given the name of their child which they were asked to stick on the body and the mystery was revealed towards the end.

After the parents guessed who their child among the body figures is, the first two games were already played. The 1^st game was entitled “Everybody went to the Market” which was based on the famous “Maria went to the market.” For this game, the kids must be with one adult. There were four stations where they were asked to do certain task on each that really challenged the speed and cooperation of each team. Game 2 was another relay game known as the “Calamansi Relay.” Again, the kids were partnered with one adult but this time the adults had no participation other than just assisting their kids not to let the calamansi fall from the spoon. Everyone had fun and they were all really competitive. The small space was not able to hinder everyone from enjoying the games. For Game 1, the YELLOW team won because of their fast strategy of putting on and taking off of all the props but the BLUE team did their best during Game 2 which made them the winner of the game.

After the tiring yet fun games, everyone had a 20 – minute break. Adults and kids filled their hungry tummies with the yummy snack food brought by each family to energize them for the next part of the program. The program resumed after everyone had settled down. Just to give them time to relax, an AVP prepared by the staff was shown to everyone. It showcased the activities of the kids starting from the month of June up to the latest possible date before the Family Day. The families of each kid were all smiling seeing their little ones having fun at school. Furthermore, the kids were also very happy to see themselves on the screen. 

The AVP just showed everyone how LHA community became the 2^nd home for the kids. Game 3 and Game 4 followed after the AVP. This time, both games were not played according to teams but by families. Game 3 was the paper dance which was entitled “My First Dance.” This game made everyone laugh as they watch all the parents and guardians doing all their best not to be out of the game by. Parents and guardians were all having that “game – face on” mode.  It’s very obvious that not only the kids were having fun but also the adults. For this game, there were 2 declared winners since both tandems were really good in balancing and strategy making. They were Mommy Ange of Yvonne from N1 and Tita Kathleen of Elijah from N2. For the last game, only adults were asked to play since this was quite confusing. The game was known as “Siopao, Siomai, Suman” which was basically based on the rules of “Hep Hep Hooray!” The audience had fun watching the players babbling and stuttering. It was a last man standing – type of game and the winner was Papa RC of Charlize from N2. To conclude the program, Teacher Grace delivered her closing remarks and the big mystery was revealed as to whether the parents were correct in guessing which body figure their kid was. Also, a special award of “Early Bird” was given to Helaina’s family of N1.

  

The event was very fun according to the participants. Everyone went home with all smiles and the kids were given their loot bags. Though we had a very limited time and space, we were still able to have fun and work as one team and most especially as one family. Therefore LHA staff together with the kids and their respective families was able to work on the mentioned theme of the event – One Goal, One community, One Family.

Again, on behalf of all the LHA staff, I would like to thank everyone who participated during the event. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you our dearest parents and guardians. We are so glad that we were able to meet all of you on a very special event. Hopefully, this day would just mark the beautiful beginnings this year. May each member of LHA family - teachers, staff, kids, parents and guardians would work positively for the solidarity and camaraderie among everyone. May this event help everybody to work as ONE.

 

Teacher Demi

**We would also like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Uy for providing some of the photos for our documentation.