New City Celebrates Chinese New Year

The children at New City have taken part in numerous activities to celebrate Chinese New Year (also known as Lunar New Year and the Spring Festival), the year of the tiger, which began on February 1st. 

Each year group took part in a workshop led by their Lǎoshī 老师 (Mandarin teachers) to understand the purpose of the festival and how to celebrate. The children discovered that the New Year is all about new beginnings; Spring is the beginning of a new year, just as the morning is the beginning of a new day. In Chinese culture, all celebrations focus on removing the old and welcoming in the new. New clothes are worn and cleaning takes place. The children know that red is a lucky colour in Chinese culture and red envelops are given as gifts. 

In their Mandarin lessons this week, the children participated in more activities to celebrate. Year 1 and 2 created tigers in honour of 2022 being the year of the tiger. Year 3 created paper lanterns with tiger strips. Year 4 engaged in the Lion and Dragon dances. Year 5 and 6 created decorations such as the couplet; The Chinese couplet refers to two complementary poetic lines adhering to certain rules, often written on red paper or carved on wooden uprights for appreciation. People will put the couplets as decorations the morning of Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year activities and decorations are created to give blessings for the next year. Both the names and looks are symbols of wishes for prosperity, happiness and auspiciousness. 

In music lessons, children listened and appraised songs in Mandarin and Year 3 sang a Mandarin song as part of their warm up. In English, KS2 furthered their knowledge of Chinese New Year in their comprehension lessons. Finally, the winners of the at home competition were announced in the whole school assembly: Halima Nursery, Sara 1T, Khadija S 2B,
Diyana 3G, Hafsa 4P and Fatima S 4P, Sarah t 5Ra and Sameya 6C 

Happy New Year! 新年好! Xīnnián hǎo!

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