Traditional music greeted the children in the morning, followed by dancing, investigating Chinese resources such as fans, chopsticks and noodles.
Baby Acorns celebrated Chinese New Year by making a dragon, with all the children lining up under the parachute and then walking around the room and they made Chinese blossom pictures. To stimulate intellectual development, they played ‘snap’ by matching cards that are the same colour, and made a shape sorting box which the children used to ‘post’ shapes into the right hole.
Chinese New YEar
Shiny Stars celebrated Chinese New Year by decorating fans with finger painting and making noodles with playdough as they compared their length and talked about ‘long’ and ‘short’. They visited the nursery kitchen in small groups to find out where their meals are prepared and how. In circle time they investigated a treasure basket filled with kitchen equipment such as pans, spoons, aprons, bonnets etc. The children took turns in choosing an object, naming it and talking about what it is used for.
Rainbows found out about the story of Chinese New Year – how each year came to be named after an animal and painted a rooster picture using forks to create the feathery tail. They talked about the different people who help us in the nursery, drawn pictures of them and found out what it means to be a ‘happy helper’ and offer to help others when they need it without being asked. In creative activities, Rainbows painted arches as they practiced the movement linked to writing the letters R and M and they created a ‘helping hands’ dot art picture
Early Explorers read the story of Chinese New Year and then learned about ordinal numbers 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc linked to the order of animals in the Chinese zodiac. They drew a picture and wrote about their favourite animals from the story and the order in which they crossed the river. They practiced using maths vocabulary to read subtraction sums and compared different ways of finding the answer by taking away objects from a group or by counting backwards on a number line. In creative, Early Explorers painted a blue and white picture to link with Chinese willow patterns found on traditional plates and make a ballerina craft for the special day.
