Dumplings for the New Year

Last Thursday, our school hosted Our Chinese New Year celebrations. As the actual Chinese New Year fell on Friday, we decided to hold our celebration the day before. Many of our students stay home on the actual day as they little ones often stay up last on the eve of New Year's and this is the day to begin fresh and new.

To begin, several students from the older grades have been practicing a dragon dance. For a few weeks now we have glimpsed them creating the movements for their dance and practicing the drums. As they made their way down our hallway, the students became very excited clapping and dancing with the dragon.

In preparation for our classroom celebration, we have created a poster for the New Year. Several students were engaged in slowing the process down. Before picking up the paint brushes to add colour to the poster, we had them brainstorm what they wanted it to look like first. More students joined in and too were encouraged to think before painting.

Inside the classroom, several kiddos were engaged in drawing the many icons related to Chinese New Year. We had one boy teaching the other how to draw a dragon.

Many students enjoyed practicing their lantern drawings. While others continued with on-going learning in other areas with our ECE student teacher making Chinese Drums.

Returning to the classroom, we were fortunate to have several community members and family join us in making dumplings. Prior to making the dumplings, our class made an anchor chart for the steps involved in dumpling making. This was a great way to reinforce procedural writing using an authentic activity.

All the students and family members were involved in the dumpling process. We had wraps to roll, wraps to fill, wraps to fold and pinch, and dumplings to cook. Lastly, we had dumplings to taste! Yum!!!

It was a great day having our families so involved in the learning process and teaching the K teachers a little bit of Chinese.

Thank you to everyone who participated.

We are looking forward to having our first Family Friday this week.