In Term 2, the students who took Mandarin as an enrichment class learnt about different festivals and celebrations that occur during the third quarter of the year. We looked at four different celebrations – Halloween, Deepavali, Thanksgiving and Christmas!
For Halloween, the students learnt the name of the festival in Mandarin, and the elements associated with the festival, such as pumpkins, spiderwebs, and spiders. We made these objects in our arts and craft session and the students took them home to decorate their rooms! The students love Halloween and these spooky crafts were a great way to start the term.
To celebrate Deepavali, the students watched a video about the origin of Deepavali and how the word Deepavali directly translates in Mandarin to ‘festival of getting rid of evil’. We made sun-catchers to symbolise light over darkness, as well as mandalas, and turned them into rangoli to decorate our floor.
The students also learnt a little about the history of Thanksgiving and how the celebration has evolved into being thankful for the things we have. We created a hand garland and wrote down the things that we were thankful for, both in English and Mandarin. The students also created a turkey and used leaves to represent its tail. We read a book about the things that people do and eat during Thanksgiving in Mandarin too!
And close to the end of 2023, the children learned about Christmas. We learnt words in Mandarin relating to Christmas, such as Christmas tree, Santa, Christmas hats, presents, reindeer and how to wish someone a ‘Merry Christmas’! We made them into ornaments for the students to hang and decorate their Christmas trees at home!