Gong Hey Fat Choy! (Happy New Year)

As Mr Wrinkles had introduced us to the festival of Chinese New Year, we thought it would be a great idea to learn about it! And it began this week on Monday 8th February.

We read the story and learnt about ordinal numbers; numbers that tell us the order things happened. We found out that the Jade Emperor had an idea about measuring time and said that he would name it after the animal who won a race. To stop the animals fighting he called for a race across the river. That trickster (or wise as some would argue) rat won and came "first". We then learnt about other ordinal numbers such as "second, "third", "fourth" etc to "twelfth" in relation to which animals came next in the race.

On Wednesday we had a special Chinese New Year morning with Cherries and Pippins. We all went into the hall and even Mr Wrinkles came in his finest Chinese silks (fresh from his adventures!).

In the morning we were able to take part in different activities to help us learn about Chinese New Year...

With Mrs Harrison we made special vegetable spring rolls!

We used real children's chopsticks to pick up noodles and add them to our plates!

We programmed the Beebot to travel across our Chinese New Year mat.

With Miss Grant and Mrs Hough, we made Chinese instruments called a Bolang Gu (or pellet drum).

Do you love our Chinese writing?!

 We looked at Chinese stories and non-fiction books. We have a special pen that can read special books to us in English or Mandarin. We loved listening to The Wheels on the Bus in Mandarin.

 

We counted pennies (Yen) into money envelopes which people hand out at Chinese New Year! Do you love our counting?


And this is just a few of the many activities we had running simultaneously! Mrs Sait and Mrs Pilsbury-Gaunt had so many to choose from and join in that I think they were spoilt for choice!

Later that morning we got to try some Chinese food. We all tried something; some of us tried prawn crackers (and even with some sweet and sour sauce) and many of us tried a little of everything! There were prawn crackers, sweet and sour chicken, egg fried rice, egg noodles and rice noodles with Chinese stir fry vegetables... and of course our lovely spring rolls! Yum Yum!

Well done Cherries and Hazelnuts on a fabulous day of festivities. Stay tuned for more Chinese New Year fun... it lasts for 15 days!