SCIS celebrates Chinese Lunar New Year

Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival or 春节, marks the end of the winter and the beginning of spring and what it brings: honoring household, prosperity and new beginnings. Most importantly, it is a time of celebration and family reunions as China plays host to the largest human migration in the world with family members traveling to rural villages to be back home just in time for Lunar New Year’s Eve dinner with their loved ones.

Despite the cool weather, celebrations at Shanghai Community International School were warm and plentiful throughout our campuses as our community came together to honor the traditions of China, through performances, cultural activities and crafts.

Kicking off the celebrations was our Hongqiao ECE campus, which held a day packed with fun, hands-on activities, for the whole family to enjoy. Alternating between classrooms, our youngest of learners tried their hands at dumpling and glutinous rice balls making, pieced together lanterns and lucky red envelopes, learned traditional handkerchief dancing, and so much more. The day ended with choreographed assemblies from both pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes.

Festivities first took place in the auditorium at our Hongqiao main campus, as lower school students were treated to acrobatics and martial arts spectacle.

The whole school then came together on the field to witness a dazzling dragon and lion dance. For the rest of the afternoon, the lower school gym was transformed into a cultural carnival where students could learn Chinese calligraphy, witness traditional paper-cutting or enjoy sugar art, amongst many other activities and crafts available.

To wrap up the celebrations, our fantastic mandarin department at our Pudong campus organized a wonderful Chinese New Year assembly showcasing performances from our mandarin learners along with outside professionals, followed by a student favorite, the temple fair.

Parent volunteers graciously helped man booths at the fair for students to play traditional Chinese games such as rubber-band skipping, shuttlecock kicking, hoops rolling, Chinese shadow play, and many more.

(The article is contributed by Mikael Masson Perez, marketing communication officer of SCIS.)