China Day

On Friday, 2 November 2018, the Infant Jesus School children came together to celebrate our Sister School relationship with China, during our Inaugural China Day.

Before recess, all classes focused on some specific learning about China and Chinese culture from different perspectives. These included making travel brochures about China, writing names using Chinese characters, representing Chinese landmarks in Art, making Chinese lanterns and recounting a school day for students visiting from China.

Recess was the first gathering, with the whole school enjoying a variety of Chinese foods available from the Canteen. These foods included, vegetable crackers, fortune cookies, steamed dumplings, vegetarian spring rolls and jelly cups with a gold coin.

After recess, the Pre-Primary to Year Six classes gathered in the school hall for a short introduction to China Day. Some information was shared about the students at our sister school in China. This included, the size of the classrooms and the kind of furniture used by the children and where the children played, which was the park adjacent to the school that the children visited once a week. It was also very interesting to find out that the children clean the school themselves and attend school six days a week, even on Christmas Day!

It was then time to commence the activities with classes moving to and from each rotation with their buddy class. As they rotated through four different activities, they learnt about the language, traditional fables, celebrations, geography and even sporting activities of China.

The activities included:

• Boarding a simulated aeroplane flight to visit China. On the flight, the passengers visited the Great Wall of China, the Yangtzee River, the Forbidden City in Beijing and many other geographical and historical sites.
• Learning about the tradition of the Chinese Dragon, which is a symbol of good luck in China. Everyone participated in this activity to create an amazing and very colourful dragon that is now displayed in the library.
• Extending their learning about dragons and creating individual dragon puppets.
• Learning about the Panda, a much-loved symbol of China.
• Playing games originating from China. One game was extremely challenging. This game was for a small group, where the group has to work together to keep the small ball in the air using only their feet. Another game, was also fun.  This game required a large group to make a dragon by cooperating to keep the head of the dragon away from the tail.
• Mr Capolingua instructed groups of children in some basic moves of Taikwondo, a traditional Chinese martial art.
• The Kindy children also made some amazing Chinese food.

After the fantastic recess, the children also enjoyed a special Chinese inspired menu organised by Mrs Ienco in the canteen. The Chinese lunch included vegetarian fried rice and vegetarian spring rolls. It was amazing to see how many orders were taken. It was a very, very popular lunch.

It was a fantastic day for the children. They loved working alongside their buddy classes and enjoying the Chinese learning and food throughout the day.