Welcoming the Year of the Dragon!
The year of the Dragon 2012 was welcomed with great celebration in the Senior class this week.
Our young Confucian Scholars
The year of the Dragon is an auspicious year in the cycle of the Chinese calendar, and it is a very popular year for children to be born. Unlike dragons in western culture who are considered portents of destruction and malice in eastern culture the dragon is a symbol of leadership and good fortune.
The senior class being the leaders of our school decided to encourage the good fortune of the Dragon Year to come their way. They set about their fact finding mission with a study of the country of China, its population, culture and geography as displayed on their informative project board.
Our Study of China.
They explored maths and art together with the ancient form of tangrams. The seven components of the tangram, must be cut from a square, the objective of the puzzle is to form a specific shape using all seven pieces, which may not overlap. Learning how to dissect the square accurately to create the seven shapes and set them together to recreate a silhouette was so much fun they hardly realised all the maths and geometry they were revising.
After all the fact finding, research, maths and design, the class were eager to get into the spirit of the Dragon Year and so they created a dramatic (almost life-size) Class Dragon, this will be the senior class’s talisman for the coming year. I know that luck isn’t something they are in need of as their hard work and good manners brings its own good fortune.
Senior Class Dragon
On the day of the New Year Festival itself the class had a celebration feast! What a fantastic cultural exchange it was. Chopsticks at the ready they feasted on many wonderful dishes from Chinese cuisine.
A feast fit for a Sun King.
The chopsticks themselves were a culinary adventure, we have often used them for transferring activities in the junior classes but eating lovely food while hungry was quite the challenge! The table was full of conversation and giggling as the children tutored each other on the art of using chopsticks to eat and share in the banquet.
Tummies full the children went up to our secret garden to make their wishes for the coming year of the dragon.
To their great surprise their teacher Ashley had brought a fantastic sky lantern to help take the children’s wishes to the sky. Another wonderous Chinese invention the Kongming Lantern originated in the 3rd century BC and is said to have inspired the creation of the modern hot air balloon.
Sending our wishes to the world.
All in all the class began the year of the Dragon more learned, accomplished and culturally aware. So its true that a balance of hard work and fun does bring its own good fortune.
Finally, to wrap up this New Year welcome here is our newest blogger Phoebe to give you a students eye view!
Happy Chinese New Year ! (xinnian kuaile)
Warm wishes of health and happiness filled the air as we prepared to start our Chinese New Year celebrations at school this week. Reception class waited with wide eyes as they unraveled their fortune cookies 😉 while us seniors debated over which dishes should be included in our chinese feast!! We managed to gather a great selection and all sat down for lunch together not forgetting to leave the customary empty seat for absent friends. After lots of chop stick fun we headed out to launch our wish lantern 🙂 never-failing to miss an opportunity our teacher took the chance to give a quick science lesson of warm air rising and to our delight our lantern took flight! A truly great school day was had by all . By Phoebe ( with a little help from a friend!!)
Happy Year of the Dragon!