Chinese New Year at Pérez Iborra

Every year the elementary students at Z & T's school have the option of spending three nights away from home skiing.  The kids who do not go on the ski trip still attend school, but there is not much new instruction taking place at that time.  Since our kids did not participate in the ski trip, and Chinese New Year this year happened to be during the exact same time, I asked the school whether they might be interested in spending the week learning about and celebrating Chinese New Year.

The school offers a once-a-week after school Mandarin class,  there is one adopted Chinese student, and a few students from Chinese families, but these are a very small minority.  In Barcelona there is a considerable and growing population of mainland Chinese immigrants, but they report that the New Year is not really celebrated here.  Chinese families have large meals together, but that about sums it up.

Since I have coordinated Chinese New Year celebrations for many years at the various schools which my children have attended over the years, it was not terribly difficult.  The school is not one in which parents volunteer in the classroom.  The teachers are very professional, warm, and creative.  I met once with the head of elementary instruction and the English teacher to suggest my ideas, they made a list of necessary items, and that was that.  They handled everything!  What a change from the public school we were at for the last few years, which involved a large corps of parent volunteers, and months of planning!  Even the cafeteria got into the act and decided to prepare a Chinese lunch for the students.

I did invest some effort creating a powerpoint to help introduce the students to Chinese New Year.

Here is a link if anyone would like to use it.  

Thankfully I was able to present in English.  English is a regular subject in the school, and parents are very eager to have their children exposed to more English.   It was a challenge for the students to understand all that I was saying, but they were so very curious and interested in the subject, it was marvelous to see.  They have not had any exposure to Chinese culture really, so it was a real treat for them.

The teachers led various art projects, such as making paper lanterns, Chinese opera masks, dragon puppets, Spring paper cuts,  writing Chinese calligraphy, learning about the Chinese Zodiac, and making ribbon sticks for dancing.  The children even learned to sing the song Gong Xi, Gong Xi in Mandarin.  They danced with their sticks at the same time.

They also learned to say two phrases, "Xin nian kuai le" and "Gong xi fa cai" in order to receive a red envelope with a chocolate euro coin in it from the headmaster.

video of kids enjoying themselves.

The older students created a 7 meter long dragon and paraded around the patio with it.

   

I felt very happy to be able to share a bit of my cultural knowledge with the students, who were very attentive and sweet.  Their enthusiasm was so heartwarming.  In addition, a lot of parents were very appreciative, and it was a nice way to "break the ice" and feel more a part of the school community.

Here is a link to the school website article about the festivities, including a bunch of photos