Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year 2019

This week at Khalsa Primary School we are celebrating Chinese New Year 2019 – The year of the Pig.

Children will be having a full week of learning (4th – 8th Feb) about this special time of the year. The teachers are planning exciting activities to ensure creative learning covering areas of the curriculum such as Art, Music, Drama, D&T and PSHE.

The actual New Year Day begins on Tuesday 5th February and 2019 is the year of the Pig. The pig is the twelfth zodiac animal.

As red is the Chinese colour of good luck, we would like everyone to come into school on Friday 8th wearing red clothing.

Things to know about Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is also known as the Spring Festival – In China, you’ll hear it being called chunjie (春节), or the Spring Festival
It is a day for praying to gods. The Spring Festival was originally a ceremonial day to pray to gods for a good planting and harvest season.
The most fireworks are set off in the world that night. As in the myth about Nian, firecrackers are supposed to scare off monsters and bad luck. So people stay up on Chinese New Year’s Eve and set off firecrackers at midnight. In the morning, firecrackers are used again to welcome the new year and good luck.
It is the longest Chinese holiday. The Spring Festival is technically 15 days. But celebrations start on New Year’s Eve (making it 16 days). You can also say that the holiday season starts in (lunar) December with the Laba Festival (腊八节—là bā jié). That’s around 40 days of celebrations!
Children receive lucky money in red envelopes. In other cultures, children receive gifts for holidays. Gifts are also exchanged during the Spring Festival. But Chinese children receive something else too—red envelopes.
You eat dumplings for every meal, every day.
The Chinese decorate everything red for Chinese New Year.
Every year has a zodiac animal. Western horoscopes include 12 zodiacs, one for each month. There are 12 Chinese zodiacs as well, but the animal is for the entire year.
The New Year greeting in Chinese is “xin nian kuai le”. The phrase literally means “Happy New Year.” But in Hong Kong and other Cantonese-speaking regions, it’s more common to say “gong hei fat choy.” In Mandarin Chinese, it’s “gong xi fa cai” (恭喜发财). It means “congratulations on the fortune.”
Chinese New Year ends with the Lantern Festival. The first full moon of the (lunar) year is the Yuanxiao Festival (元宵节—yuán xiāo jié) or Lantern Festival (灯节—dēng jié). Though family is still important, it’s still a night of partying and freedom.

Day 1 of Chinese New Year – Monday 4th February 2019

Nursery

Nursery engaged in messy play with noodles as part of their for Chinese New Year celebrations.

The children enjoyed using their fine motor skills to trace the Chinese characters & of course they also had the opportunity to attempt to write some themselves!

Reception

Reception children have made a start on making a big Chinese Dragon for Chinese New Year. Every child will be adding their own creative elements to the Dragon.

Children also learnt about Chinese Writing and traced letters on the interactive whiteboard.

Year 1 – Music

Our specialist music teacher, Mrs Stoker, worked with Year 1 children to celebrate Chinese New Year.

– The children not only learnt how to make the dragon come to life but they also discovered that dragons are important to Chinese people who think of them as helpful, friendly creatures, linked to good luck, long life and wisdom.

Day 2 of Chinese New Year – Tuesday 5th February 2019

Year 2 – P.E. – At Khalsa, we understand the importance of peer to peer learning and encourage child led learning. The video shows one of the children in Year 2 teaching his peers martial arts.

Martial arts help to teach children the art of self-discipline, restraint and patience.

Year 3 – “I wrote some Chinese writing. I know that in Chinese, we say Gong Xi Fa Chai.” Rhea

“I learnt the story about the Chinese zodiac. I also made lanterns using papers.” Jasmin

“I enjoy making the Chinese lanterns. I found out that this year is a Pig year and it is called Zhu in Chinese.” Jaiveen

Year 3 – We looked at the atlas to find countries that celebrate Chinese New Year. We found out that most countries are from Asia. Some of the countries that celebrate Chinese new year as a national celebration are South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Mongolia, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Day 3 of Chinese New Year – Wednesday 6th February 2019

Year 1

Year 1 have been learning about China and the Chinese New Year. We have learned how to say Hello in Mandarin. Ni hao! We located China on a map and found out lots of information about the country. We listened to the story of the Chinese New Year and learned about how it is celebrated across the world. As part of our English we have looked at fairy tales from around the world Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella story from China.

We have loved sharing in this celebration and have produced some fantastic work in school and at home. Well done Year 1!

Year 5 – In English, Year 5 have been researching information about the Great Wall of China, we then wrote non chronological reports about the subject.

“I enjoyed learning about the Great Wall of China, and learning fascinating facts about it” Sahib

Year 6

As it is Chinese New Year this week, in art we read a traditional Chinese story and looked at how it has been represented by artists. We studied willow plates and made inferences based on the drawings and colours used. Next we will be designing our own willow plates.

Day 4 of Chinese New Year – Thursday 7th February 2019

Year 2 – With the help of Mrs Morgan, class 2 Sparrow have turned into a wonderful Chinese Dragon!

Dragons traditionally symbolise potent and auspicious powers, particularly control over water, rainfall, typhoons, and floods. The dragon is also a symbol of power, strength and good luck for people who are worthy of it in Chinese culture.