Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Today our school celebrated Chinese New Year with an amazing assembly and homemade Chinese dumplings, thanks to a very generous and hard-working group of parents  and some talented students.  Thank you all!

The Kindergarten students kicked off the celebration with the dragon dance.  Well done, K's!

We also enjoyed listening to a few young Chantrell Creek musicians. Kim played violin, Lucas played his cello, Colin played an authentic Chinese flute and one of our intermediates demonstrated a traditional Chinese stringed instrument called a Gu Zheng.

 A very well-practiced group of grade three girls demonstrated a dance.  They wore beautiful costumes and held paper lanterns.

 Some of our grade 7 girls and a few Moms participated in a stunningly elegant fashion show.  They were wearing authentic Chinese "dresses" provided by another of our parents.  A very impressive show!

 This secretive, mysterious dancer revealed several different faces using changing masks.  Quite an entertaining performance!

 Toward the end a group of grade 6 boys treated the school to an entertaining and well-executed lion dance.  We saw the lion's eyelashes bat at us and it's tail wag as it carefully sat on a bench - and what a beautiful lion it was!

 

We were even able to listen to one of our parents who is an accomplished Chinese opera singer.  This was a new experience for many of us - what a spectacular performance!

 



Gung Hey Fat Choy! Photos by select Dolphins

 We are celebrating the Lunar New Year school-wide! Can anyone tell us what this Chinese character means in English?

There are special displays of games, books, lanterns and other special artifacts in the school.

Today the foyer looked quiet...
What do you think we might see tomorrow before the assembly begins?

 



Addition Snap with Our Buddies

 Last week our grade 3 buddies taught us how to play Addition Snap.  Each partner gets half the deck of cards.  Then they put them face down.  Next they each take two cards from the top of their pile and turn both face up.  They add the cards together.  Aces are worth one and all the face cards (jacks, queens and kings) are worth ten - great practice for counting on!  The person with the higher number (or "sum" as the grade 3's know) takes all four cards and places them at the bottom of their pile.

 Here is one of the students counting on from 3 to add 3 + 8.

 Once they determine the winner, those cards are swiped off the table quickly!

If the partners' cards result in a tie, a challenge ensues.  As this group discovered, challenges require a lot of cards as well as a lot of space!  The most exciting part?  The winner takes ALL!

The Word Walls Have Grown

So here are all the words we have covered in our planners to date.  Keep practising them Dolphins, any way you want - with fancy bubble letters, in paint or chalk, or even by cutting letters out of newspapers or magazines and gluing them onto paper.  If you bring your work to school we could add your work to our Artist's Wall or even onto the Word Wall.
How many can you read, Dolphins?

Centres Creations

One of our students created this during Centres time.  Check back soon to see if she writes about it during Centres time next week!