Gung Hei Fat Choy

2018 The Year Of The Dog

The children thoroughly enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year and taking part in celebrations at nursery. We chopped up vegetables to make Chinese stirfry and ate it using chopsticks for snack! The children developed their hand eye coordination skills, cutting and joining techniques while making lanterns for the role-play restaurant.
In the Chinese restaurant children ordered food, make deliveries, took orders over the phone, cooked and served up meals for their friends. Some enjoyed browsing through Chinese cookbooks and Chinese newspapers.
The children loved dressing up and using ribbons to dance like dragons and snakes when Fenfen came to visit. Fenfen told us the story of Chinese New Year and we talked about the story of the animals race and how the tricky rat climbed on the ox' head to cross the river first. We replicated the race with animals in the sand and some children dressed up as the Jade Emperor. Some children make models of Chinese dragons out of blocks, Lego, play dough and Mobilo construction kits.
Fenfen also told the story of why firecrackers are used in the New Year celebrations and also why red is seen as a lucky colour. 
The children enjoyed a second day of Chinese food including spring rolls and prawn crackers. They took home fortune cookies too. The children made red lucky envelopes, writing  their names in gold: they took the envelopes home with chocolate coins inside to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Some parents emailed photos of their children at the Liverpool Chinese New Year celebrations and we looked at them together on the Cleverboard.

We loved singing the Chinese New Year song with actions. Click on the link below to sing along with your child!