Chinese New Year 2014

Transcription

1 Chinese New Year 2014 Chinese New Year is a great opportunity to inspire children to write is the Year of the Horse and takes place on 31 st January Use these top ten ideas to encourage children to have fun writing on different materials, writing for different purposes and exploring different forms of writing. 1. Create your own fortune cookies Fortune cookies are really easy to make and they are a fun way of encouraging even the most reluctant of children to write! You can use paper, card or felt to make your cookies. Trace around a bowl on the wrong side of your paper. Cut around the circle. Bring opposite edges of the paper circle together like a taco shell and make a small crease at the bottom. Run a small line of glue along the crease. Turn the circle one quarter turn and fold glue together into a taco shape. Children can either write inside the fortune cookie before folding or they can insert a fortune on a small piece of paper after the cookie is made. Get children to decorate their fortune cookies using Chinese images for inspiration. 2. Write on different Chinese materials Get children exploring what it feels like to write on different materials. Use Chinese New Year to get children thinking about different natural materials which originate from China and use some of them in the classroom to experiment writing on them. Try using fabric pens with scraps of silk material, writing in clay using a sharp pencil, designing and painting their own chopsticks (bulk packs of disposable chopsticks can be bought very cheaply) or writing on paper hanging lanterns. 3. Write a play 2014 is the Year of the Horse. Use this as inspiration for getting the class to write a play. The children could create their own Chinese masks for their character and then perform it in front of other year groups at assembly. Lots of points for discussion here the Chinese zodiac; the importance of the animals used in the zodiac in Chinese culture; history of masks, in particular the dragon mask in New Year s celebration in China. 4. Spark the imagination Chinese New Year is a creative and vibrant festival. Check out our Pinterest board with images to spark the imagination. Use the images to kick-start a story either as a whole-class initiative, in small groups or individually.

2 5. Use this booklist inspired by Chinese New Year to promote wider reading The Year of the Horse: Tales from the Chinese Zodiac, Oliver Clyde Chin Immedium ISBN: X Celebrating Chinese New Year, Nick s New Year - Rosa Drew, Heather Phillips Creative Trading Press ISBN: Let s Celebrate Festival Poems - John Foster Oxford University Press ISBN: China Usborne ISBN: The Dancing Dragon - Marcia Vaughan Mondo Publishing ISBN: Let s Celebrate Festival Poems from Around the World - Debjani Chatterjee & Brian D Arcy Frances Lincoln ISBN: My China Travel Journal, Laura Barta CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN: Lanterns and Firecrackers: A Chinese New Year Story (Festival Time), Jonny Zucker Frances Lincoln ISBN: Dragon Dance: A Chinese New Year, Joan Holub Puffin ISBN: The Great Race, Dawn Casey Barefoot Books ISBN:

3 6. A discovery is made. Set the scene for pupils to discover remnants of a precious Chinese vase in the grounds of the school (use old pieces of pottery). Make the discovery even more realistic by reading a fake letter out in assembly from your local museum stating that a valuable Chinese vase from the Qing dynasty has gone missing and they need your school to help them with any clues. Get the children playing newspaper reporters and ask them to write their front page articles. You can even create a newspaper masthead and a template for the front page and the class can use the template to drop in their story. 7. Write a celebratory poem Working in groups, get the children to write a poem which can be recited at the party. Perhaps read this one out to inspire them. Dragon Dance A Chinese dragon's in the street And dancing on its Chinese feet With fearsome head and golden scale And twisting its ferocious tail. Its bulging eyes are blazing red While smoke is puffing from its head And well you nervously might ask What lies behind that fearful mask. It twists and twirls across the road While BANG the cracker strings explode. Don't yell or run or shout or squeal Or make a Chinese dragon's meal For, where its heated breath is fired They say it likes to be admired. With slippered joy and prancing shoe Why, you can join the dragon too. There's fun with beating gongs and din When dragons dance the New Year in. Max Fatchen

4 8. Create your own Chinese calendar Ask children to use the internet at home to find examples of Chinese calendars and print them off for inspiration. Discuss the Chinese zodiac, the 12 year cycle and how each year is represented by a different animal. Discuss the difference between the Chinese calendar and the Western calendar. Set aside a morning for them to create their own Chinese calendars. Use our Pinterest Board for images ( 9. Hold a Chinese New Year Party Hold a Chinese New Year party in your classroom. Ask the children to make and write invitations for the party. You could also create posters to promote the party around your school using one or two images from our Pinterest board Blow up some red balloons and get the children to decorate them with Chinese lettering and symbols or pictures of dragons. Ask the children to bring in some fairy cakes and then get them to ice their initials in Chinese on their cakes. Could the class write a song for Chinese New Year which can be performed at the party? 10. New Year s resolutions Use Chinese New Year as an opportunity to review personal learning goals. Discuss what New Year s Resolutions are. Task the group to research the history of resolutions using books and the internet. Perhaps the class could each write a letter to a friend in their class detailing a few personal goals they would like to achieve this year

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