Chinese New Year
We had wonderful celebrations in school and learned so much about Chinese New Year and Chinese culture. People from the Confucius Institute at Nottingham University came into school to teach us these things.
Some children learned to do some Kung Fu moves. The teacher made this so much fun and we copied his moves!
We also learned to speak some Mandarin, including how to say hello. We loved learning how to write Chinese letters in a Calligraphy class using special brushes and ink. We also learned about the tools you use to write with. We also enjoyed a magic paper trick – every time we wrote Chinese writing it would magically disappear!
Some children made noodles in class and we loved tasting them with chopsticks.
Every year we celebrate Chinese New Year in school by having children dress in a Chinese Dragon costume. We play instruments and we sing a special song. We know this is the year of the Rooster and that China is also the shape of a rooster. We heard the story of how the years are named after different animals.
This year we have made a huge papier mache Chinese dragon to hang in the hall. Children are decorating this to look like the dragon in the Shanghai Museum.