Chinese New Year

It was Chinese New Year on the 19th of February this year.

1st Class received a very interesting package  from a former classmate of theirs- Cillian. Cillian now lives in Singapore. They were so excited to see what was inside the package. We hurried to rip open the paper and were so amazed at what we found inside it.

Cillian sent the children lots of decorations for the classroom all based around Chinese New Year.

After receiving this beautiful gift we decided to learn some more about Chinese New Year.

Each year is named after an animal. This year, 2015, is named after the goat. There is an ancient story written about how different years were named after animals. The class really enjoyed this story.

Red envelopes with money inside them are given to children on New Years from their parents and grandparents. Two mandarin oranges are given to family or friends that are visited around this time. This is to wish them ‘Good Health and Prosperity in the New Year’.

This wish of ‘Good Health and Prosperity’ is very important to them on Chinese New Year. We learned a poem all about it.

Happy Chinese New Year

By Helen H. Moore

“Gung Hoy , Fat Choy!”, (Good Health and Prosperity to you)

In China, every girl and boy,

Celebrates the New Year,

In a very special way.

With fireworks and dragons,

Coloured red and gold.

They welcome in the New Year,

And chase away the old.

We had a fun quiz in the class to see how much we learned! There were two winning groups who got all the questions correct!

We wrote what we had learned on ‘Chinese New Year’ themed paper and finally as part of our art lesson we made Chinese lanterns.

We really enjoyed our study on the Chinese New Year.

Thank you Cillian for your kind gift.