On Wednesday we celebrated Chinese New Year. The children had previously voted that they wanted to have chocolate cake as part of the celebration (a little treat doesn’t hurt every now and again!) which Jim and the children baked together. The celebration room was beautifully adorned with twinkling lights, red streamers and gold swirls. The children work together to create huge lion heads for the lion dance. In Chinese culture, the lion symbolizes power, wisdom, and superiority. People perform lion dances at Chinese festivals or big occasions to bring good fortune. The lion dance is one of the most important traditions at Chinese New Year. It is performed to bring prosperity and good luck for the upcoming year. All of the children had the opportunity to eat a delicious feast of noodles and stir fried vegetables using chopsticks! The staff were very impressed with the dexterity of our children with many of them being able to eat all of their noodles using the chopsticks. They learnt about how the12 animals of the Chinese zodiac were selected by a race organised by the Jade Emperor – an important god in the Chinese religion. The 12 animals who were winners in the race were: a pig, dog, rooster, monkey, goat, horse, snake, dragon, rabbit, tiger, ox and rat, with 2025 being the year of the snake. The celebration finished with children dancing to Chinese music and re-enacting the lion dance. a fabulous time was had by all.