Lunar New Year 2025
Last week we had great fun celebrating Chinese New Year and the year of the snake.
At Farmoor, the children in Cubs have been enjoying playdough activities, exploring the use of tools, such as rolling pins and mark marking or poking holes in their playdough. The children used cabbage leaves and pipe cleaners, to explore making marks as well as a range of textures. The tray also contained lots of colour in the theme of fireworks.
Tigers have been enjoying cutting and sticking, so the team used paper plates and invited the children to make snake lanterns. They independently used the scissors, glue and various materials to make their snakes look colourful and individual.
In Lions they have enjoyed playing shops this week, using the new coins and tills. This has been an activity which has captured the attention of many, using lots of recycled boxes, empty skin care and food items. On Wednesday, the theme was a noodle shop- the children enjoyed helping to soften the noodles, and add various other sensory items to compare textures including rice, couscous and lentils. They also enjoyed developing their skills when using one handed tools and equipment, including the use of chop sticks, scissors and tweezers.
Throughout the setting, the children have all listened to traditional Chinese music exploring different ways to move to this.
At Bletchingdon, the Badgers practiced wishing each other a happy new year in Cantonese, “Gong Hei Fat Choy!” They also made Snakes, and Chinese New Year Fans, out of paper plates. They played games in the garden, such as “Good Luck Toss” where they threw beanbags at targets, representing good wishes like prosperity, health, and happiness.
The children also enjoyed watching some short videos all about Luna New Year, and colouring different pictures.
Foxes enjoyed reading various stories/books around Chinese New Year. They also filled their curiosity cube with all things related to Lunar New Year (Lucky Cat, Chop Sticks, Dragon) as well as having role-play face masks available of the animals from the Chinese calendar. They have also planned to explore rice and noodles in their sensory tray, as well as enjoying different colouring pages and dot-to-dot’s.
In Grizzlies at Eynsham they made a stir fry, which they ate for tea, very impressive. The children enjoyed trying some sweet and sour sauce with prawn crackers along side the vegetable stir fry.
Pandas shared some fortune cookies together and talked about the different Chinese New Year animals whilst doing some mark making.
Sun Bears were enjoying the sensory tray full of red rice, a tipping and pouring activity and colouring in the giant snake.
What a wonderful celebration of Lunar New Year.
