Celebrations

This term our inquiry focus is celebrations and festivals. We are enjoying learning how the Chinese New Year is celebrated and how differently we celebrate this same event. We have discovered that Chinese New Year lasts for 15 days instead of just one here in New Zealand. There are lots of exciting things that Chinese people do to celebrate the New Year and we learnt it all ends with the Chinese lantern festival. We have made some stunning lanterns of our own which make our classroom very festive. 

We made fans and wrote Happy New Year in Chinese.

We have also been learning about the lion and dragon dances that take place during Chinese New Year festivities. We were very impressed when we got to watch a lion dance. We worked out that 2 people are inside the lion costume making it dance. They have to practice for a very long time but it is worth it - how talented they are! The dragon dance is quite different and needs a lot more people so we are going to have a go at making our own dragon dance in Room 6. 

We will be looking at other celebrations and festivals this term including Diwali, Matariki and Hannukah. It will be interesting to see how other people around the world celebrate different things compared to how we celebrate them in New Zealand. Do you have special celebrations in your family? You might like to talk about why your family celebrates special events.