During the Chinese Culture Week, the Nest children started festive activities such as making window decorations and hanging lanterns. The children exclaimed, "That animal looks powerful!" I replied, "Yes, the dragon is the only non-existent animal among the Chinese zodiac animals, representing the wisdom and aspirations of Chinese people." The activities in class were diverse and full of creativity, as the children continued to explore and became more interested in the interesting customs, beautiful ancient poems, and exciting traditional stories of the Spring Festival.

The children in Eaglets have a strong desire to explore the Chinese New Year, and each activity brings them a lot of joy. We learnt the origin of Nian through the story "The Nian Monster" and posted Spring Festival couplets and lucky characters on the classroom door to prevent the monster from coming to our Nest. We also read the story "A New Year's Reunion" together and learnt about the origin of the twelve zodiac animals. What made the children even more excited was that we made fireworks handicrafts together.

We started to explore the story of "Nian", so that the children can gradually deepen their understanding of "Nian". The Nursery children and teachers read storybooks together, sang New Year songs, and made paper cup fireworks. We enjoyed Chinese dragon crafts and pasted blessing characters. These activities aimed to help the children experience the joy of the New Year. They learned to make festive food with playdough and learned to say auspicious words to experience the meaning of Chinese New Year.

The Reception children combined Chinese New Year with the last solar term - "Major cold". They created a "Counting the Cold Plum Blossom" display board in the math area and designed hats for winter wear using foam nets in the "Junk Modelling" area. In the art area, we also made a series of handmade crafts linked to the New Year, such as a dragon year card, firecrackers, and candied haws. Through these activities, the children were able to truly experience the arrival of the New Year, and every activity was filled with the lively and joyful atmosphere of the Spring Festival.

Y1 children have learnt bilingual stories such as "The Great Race: The 12 Chinese Zodiacs", "New Year's Eve", and "Laba Festival". We have decorated our classroom with "Fu Zi" and window stickers. On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month - the Laba Festival, the children brought ingredients from home, and we cooked and tasted Laba Porridge together. We then learnt about the structure of recipes and wrote the recipe for Laba Porridge in both languages. These activities have taught us a lot about Chinese New Year and have increased our anticipation and excitement for the coming year!

Happy Chinese New Year