21 February 2020
Chinese New Year is commonly known as the most important festival in Chinese culture. Normally it starts in February; however, this year, it began in January. For the first two weeks of Term 1, Chinese language students from Year 7 to 12 participated in various activities during lessons.
Year 7 students learned how Chinese people celebrate Chinese New Year and researched the special symbols that are used in celebrating Chinese New Year. With the knowledge of what they learned, they designed and made the special Chinese New Year Cards for the people they want to send best wishes to during the festival.
Year 8 Chinese classes learned how to make dumplings, which is an essential food experience during New Year’s Eve to hope for prosperity in the coming year. Students worked in Da Costa Dinning Hall with the Chartwells chef preparing the dumpling filling and dumpling skins and the students folded the dumplings themselves, so that students could enjoy the dumplings they made. Students demonstrated their creativity by making dumplings in different shapes and learned how to use chopsticks and challenged themselves by picking up skittles with chopsticks.
In Year 9, students learned Chinese New Year greeting phrases and also learned how to describe celebrations during the Spring Festival in Chinese.
The Year 10 and 11 students both paid attention to the topic of coronavirus by reading stories and articles, and having class discussions about how the coronavirus has affected the Chinese New Year’s celebrations this year. The Year 12 students were studying a unit on Customs and Traditions, which not only focuses on the celebrations, but also the social values behind them.
Special thanks to the Catering Manager Ms Tamsin Michalitsianos and the Head Chef Mr Joel O’Neill for assisting in the Year 8 dumpling making sessions.
Fangfang Qui
Senior School Teacher
