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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
(8) Christmas Carnival-25 December 1979
A Christmas Carnival was held on 25 December at Kowloon Park, consisting of interesting programmes like stall games, a mini tricycle contest, a children's party and folk dance performances.
(9) Children's Parties
Children's Parties were held once every two months at various parks and play-grounds in all districts. Rich programmes specially devised for children include story-telling, plays, nursery rhymes and games. Famous artists of radio and TV stations popular among children are often invited to give performances at the parties.
(10) Special Programmes for Handicapped Children
Regular programmes were for the handicapped and disabled so unfortunate children. These included magic shows, acrobatic displays, singing and dancing and children's drama. Small gifts are also given to the participants and audience.
Children's Library Festival boosts books
A Children's Library Festival in December marked the close of the International Year of the Child.
The festival stimulated children's interests in reading, develop their creative abilities and introduce children's books not only to children, but also to parents and teachers. Besides the regular library activities such as story-telling sessions and children's interest clubs, the festival included the following programme:
(a) Children's Drama Competition
This was one of the festival highlights with 40 schools and associations taking part at two levels: the district knockout competition and the final competition. The six district winning teams entered the final competition at the City Hall Theatre on December 29.
(b) Children's Book Exhibition
This exhibition, held in the City Hall Junior Library from December 22-31, featured some 900 English and Chinese books. At the same time other junior libraries also held displays of children's books.
(c) Children's Book-list
This list of some 700 English and Chinese library books aimed to help both children and parents select children's books.
(d) Children's Handicrafts Exhibition
Handicrafts by the libraries' Children's Interest Clubs were on show at Waterloo Road Library from December 7-18 and at the Wan Chai Library from December 22-31.
(e) Chinese Puppet Demonstration and Talk on Mime
To introduce various performing arts to children, a Chinese puppet demonstration was held in Wan Chai Library on December 23 and a subject talk and demonstration on Mime for Children was held in Sham Shui Po Library on December 28.
(f) Children's Interest Clubs
To encourage children to be more creative and make full use of the library resources, the Branch Libraries organized interest clubs, such as Children's Painting, Children's Arts and Crafts, Chinese Folk-Dancing and Let Us Sing.
(g) Film Shows
The recreational and educational films for children were shown during the festival at District Libraries.
(h) Seminar on Children's Books
This seminar in Cantonese for parents and teachers was held at the Recital Hall, City Hall High Block on December 22. Included in the seminar were discussions on how to stimulate a child's interest in reading, how to select children's books, and the relationship between children and books. Many teachers and parents took part in this seminar.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Contributions by the Museum of Art and Museum of History to the International Year of the Child
To commemorate the International Year of the Child the Museum of Art introduced "Hong Kong Children" as a special topic for art works submitted for the Urban Council Hong Kong Art Biennial Exhibition as one of the highlights in the Fourth Festival Art Awards. Seventeen outstanding works on this special topic were selected for the exhibition of Asian Arts.
The Museum of Art also organized a special series of children's art activities for the year. As a joint function by the Urban Council and the Association of Hong Kong Children's Art Exhibitions, all primary schools in Hong Kong were invited to send in their students' works to be selected for a children's art exhibition in the Museum of Art in December last year. Young artists whose works were selected were invited to a sketch and painting session in the Ocean Park, with free transport and lunch. Outstanding works produced in the session were featured in the Children's Art Exhibition, under the title 'Their Joyful Moments', and fifteen prizes were awarded to the best entries.
The Museum of Art had an active programme of school visits. During the first nine months of 1979 about four thousand students came to the Museum in organized groups.
The Museum of History had also designed exhibitions with young visitors in mind. Working together with the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, the museum staged the Country Parks and Countryside Conservation exhibition at the Star House during the summer vacation, and the exhibition attracted nearly 10,000 visitors.
The Museum also carried out an active programme for school visits. From January to September, 4,395 students visited Star House in groups, guided either by their own teachers or by museum staff. The Branch Museum at Lei Cheng Uk was especially heavily used by young students. During the same period 3,882 children visited the museum and Han Tomb, and were entertained with a display on life in the Han dynasty, aided by an audio-visual programme produced specially for young students.
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