Chinese New Year

Mrs Gough/O'Keefe's class had a special visit from Xinyi's mum who came to talk to us about Chinese New Year.

Chinese New Year 2017 falls between 28th January and 15th February - beginning on the first day of a new moon and ending with the full moon on the day of the Lantern Festival. As the Chinese calendar is based on the lunar year, so the date of Chinese New Year changes every year.

Chinese New Year is the most important of the Chinese holidays, and is a time of feasting with the family, celebration, fireworks and gift-giving. Children usually receive money in red and gold wallets and they watch parades which include a brightly coloured dragon.

The Chinese calendar follows a 12-year pattern with each year named after an animal - this year it's the Rooster! There are various stories which explain this. The simplest is that the Emperor invited all of the animals to join him for a New Year celebration, but only 12 animals turned up. To reward the animals that did come, Buddha named a year after each of them in the order that they arrived, starting with the Rat, followed by the Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat (or Sheep), Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig.

Do you know which animal year you were born in? In this class we are either Roosters (2005 birthdays) or Dogs (2006 birthdays). Mrs Gough was born in the year of the Monkey!