Author: Dawn Cleveland – Kindergarten homeroom teacher

Each year at Pythagoras Academy our school community comes together to celebrate Chinese New Year.  This festive celebration is always exciting and much anticipated. Friday, January 31, many students and staff dressed in traditional clothing for the event.  The hallways and doors were decorated with Chinese symbols and artwork.

Our celebrations started off with a traditional Chinese lunch.  Students were educated on the significance of the meal that they were served.

Sweet & Sour Chicken: Chicken is an important dish for Chinese New Year Eve dinner.  In Chinese, chicken has the same sound as Lucky (ji). There is a saying in Chinese: A feast without chicken is not a real feast.

Shanghai Bok Choy/ Spring Roll: Chinese New Year is also called Spring Festival. Chinese people eat spring rolls to wish for good health.

Fried Rice with Chinese Sausage: The Chinese sausage in this dish is also called December Sausage (La Chang).  A long time ago, Chinese people would save pork meat for the Chinese New Year feast, so they would make this sausage in December (Lunar calendar). That’s why Chinese people have the tradition of eating December sausage to celebrate the new year.

After our delicious lunch students participated in various activities in their homerooms.  Students enjoyed paper cutting, Chinese calligraphy, learning about the Chinese Zodiac signs, listening to Chinese music, reading stories and watching informational movies.

The day’s celebration continued with an assembly where we were joined by our parent community.  Starting the program off was our JK and Kindergarten classes each performing songs. This was followed by wonderful performances by the Grade 1-8 Mandarin classes.  During the assembly best dressed traditional costume prizes were given out in the following categories: JK (boy and girl), Grades K-2 (boy and girl) and Grades 3-8 (boy and girl).  The finale was the Lion Dance, which was enjoyed by all.  

Our celebration ended with Mr. Bouchard handing out red envelopes with chocolate coins.  Wishing everyone good luck for the coming year!