Mandarin Classes Celebrate Chinese New Year
The Mandarin faculty of Westchester Country Day School led students in celebrating the Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year, during the beginning of February.
Students at every grade level pre-K through 12th are a part of the Mandarin language program at Westchester, and the activities involved students schoolwide. Faculty members Ms. Gia Huang and Dr. Ying-Sin Chen introduced students to a variety of hands-on projects based on Chinese traditions.
Celebrations began with Middle and Upper School Mandarin classes practicing the art of calligraphy while writing spring couplets for the new year. They decorated their work with tigers since 2022 is the Year of the Tiger (虎 hǔ). Students shared decorations with messages of happiness, blessing and luck (福 fú) with faculty members and posted them around the school.
Middle and Upper School students also had the opportunity to learn about food enjoyed during Lunar New Year, including the tradition of making Chinese dumplings. The classes used the kitchen in Wilson Student Center to prepare dumplings and other Chinese dishes.
They also shared dragon and lion dances throughout campus and visited with their Lower School buddies.
Lower School classes made spring paper cutouts, tiger masks and tiger hand puppets. They also received red envelopes as is tradition and practiced using chopsticks to pick up festival foods they made with playdough.
