Chinese New Year, Chinese School Style

Zoe’s and Maya’s Chinese School celebrated Chinese New Year on Saturday. The teen class explained some Chinese New Year traditions, with Power-Point presentations on special foods and on what happened each day of the 15-day celebration. Then the younger kids’ classes took turns singing songs to celebrate the new year. Maya's class was really cute, especially when each child said "Happy New Year" (in Chinese, of course) into the microphone.

Notice that Maya’s class is all girls,

while Zoe is the only girl in her class! Just coincidence; Zoe is also the only non-native Chinese speaker in the class, and the only adopted child. Maya's class has 3 girls adopted from China.

Freed from the performances, the kids had a chance for fun and games – making rice balls. . .

. . . practicing calligraphy with brush and ink, on lucky red paper,

. . . and yo-yoing – that’s Mr. Allen, Maya’s teacher, showing her how.

She picked it up pretty quickly, going solo in no time.

Zoe considers herself an old hand at the Chinese yo-yo, having played with it last year at the school's Chinese New Year celebration. It might be time to get her one. . . .

Finally, the kids had a chance to be the lion for the Lion Dance.

So the Chinese New Year has been well and truly rung in. We still have one more celebration – showing Zoe’s class how it’s done!