The Year of the Monkey

Chinese New Year 2004 falls on January 22nd to 24th. Chinese New year, or Yuan Tan, was once an agricultural festival marking the beginning of spring. Chinese communities around the world celebrate this 3 day festival with a variety of customs. The purpose of these is to avert bad luck and bring prosperity. So families clean their houses to get rid of lingering ill-fortune, let off fire crackers to drive away ghosts and evil spirits, and give presents of money wrapped up in auspicious red paper.

Some Ideas and resources for celebrating Chinese New Year.

• Read the Chinese New Year Story
• If you have Clicker 4 you can download a Chinese New Year story from www.learninggrids.com/uk/ (under categories> themes>Chinese New Year)
• Make Chinese lanterns, animal zodiac masks, paper fans.
• Write the Chinese characters for the animals.
• Learn a Chinese song.
• Make Chinese New Year cards.
• Try some Chinese recipes.

The Portsmouth EMAS website has an excellent range of resources and activities to download for Chinese New Year, including posters of the Chinese zodiac, animal masks, how to make a Chinese lantern, a toy dragon and much more: www.blss.portsmouth.sch.uk/hsc/cny/cny.shtml

Ideas for assemblies can be found at: www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/assemblies/  Enter 'Chinese New Year' in 'Key Word(s)' - this search will give two assemblies for KS1/ 2 and KS3/ 4 respectively.

See how Kingsholm Primary School Reception classes celebrated Chinese New year last year in 2003.

Let us know about your school's Chinese New Year 2004 celebrations, so they can appear on the Mosaic section of irespect, or in the Race Equality Newsletter for Schools.

Send contributions to:

Giles Diggle, Head of CIRCLE and Race Equality Adviser,

CIRCLE

The Hucclecote Centre

Churchdown Lane

Hucclecote

GLOUCESTER
GL3 3QN

email: giles.diggle@gloucestershire.gov.uk