13 Feb Reception Understanding the World – Chinese New Year
This week in Reception, we have been learning all about Chinese New Year. We discovered how and why it is celebrated and explored lots of exciting traditions. The children had great fun looking at special artefacts and trying on beautiful costumes.
We read the story ‘The Great Race’ and found out how the rat cleverly won the race against the other animals. Linking our maths and literacy skills, we ordered the animals using ordinal number language such as ‘first, second, third’ and carefully sequenced the story.
The children enjoyed some wonderful sensory activities too. They experimented with mark-making in rice and glitter, and even had a go at drawing Chinese symbols and numbers. Using paint and thin brushes, we carefully wrote our names using Chinese symbols, showing fantastic concentration and control. We also practised our fine motor skills by using chopsticks to pick up noodles and pasta, which was lots of fun!
Our creative table has been very busy this week! We made colourful Chinese lanterns, “Happy New Year” banners and cards to celebrate. We also created wonderful zigzag Chinese dragons using strips of coloured paper and designed our own dragon faces and heads, thinking carefully about the bright colours and patterns.
In PE, we enjoyed learning traditional Chinese dance moves and practised some exciting Kung Fu techniques.
It has truly been another fun-filled, hands-on week of learning. Well done Reception and happy holidays!
