Kits News - 9th February 2024

This week the Kits have been learning about the ‘Lunar New Year’, its celebrations and traditions. On Monday we watched a video of traditional Chinese Lion Dancing and then looked closely at a real Chinese Lion mask which we have at nursery. The children bravely approached and touched the mask, describing it as “fluffy’ and “smooth”. We then danced to some traditional music and developed our gross motor skills as we waved scarves in the air to the rhythm of the music.

In Art we have been making fans, painting and decorating them in red and learning that this is an important colour, representing ‘good luck’ in the Lunar New Year celebrations. We refined our fine motor skills as we buried gold coins in the playdough and kinetic sand and also supported the children’s Maths development as we counted how many coins we found. 

We have been looking at a lot of different scripts throughout the week and the children have experimented at drawing Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese symbols. We used sticks and thin brushes to make marks in the flour and sand and used thin paintbrushes to draw lines to represent symbols. 

Our Role-Play Area has been set up as a Chinese restaurant for the week and the children have been busy preparing each other delicious meals using the ‘loose parts’ such as wool as pretend ‘noodles’. The children have also embraced learning how to use the chopsticks with a good level of success! 

During our Science Focus Time on Thursday we explored reactions as we made ‘Lunar New Year’ firework pictures. The children used spreaders to dribble runny glue on black paper and sprinkled salt on top. They then used pipettes to squirt food colouring on top of the salt which coloured it and left a firework effect behind, leaving the children amazed! 

It was a fabulous week and we wish everyone a happy ‘Lunar New Year’.