Celebrating Chinese New Year at BASIS International Schools

It is the Year of the Ox, and our schools in China have welcomed the new year in style! Chinese New Year celebrations at all of our schools have focused not only on creative and fun activities, but also on educating students and teachers about Chinese culture and history. Students in all grade levels participated in projects including lantern making, elaborate Chinese calligraphy, writing poems and stories, and dragon parades.

Not only do our students have the opportunity to immerse themselves in Chinese culture and heritage, but our teachers frequently get involved as well! Let’s take a look at a few of the celebrations from our campuses as we say goodbye to the Year of the Rat, and welcome the Year of the Ox!

chinese new year celebrations at BASIS International School Nanjing

Early Years

In our Early Years classrooms, teachers focus on helping students discover the world around them, sparking their natural curiosity and laying the foundation for a successful academic future. As part of Chinese New Year activities, students participated in making traditional crafts, such as lanterns and folding lucky red packets.

Early Years students at BASIS International School Shenzhen try calligraphy.

BASIS International School Nanjing students and teachers make the traditional snack, sugar coated haws.

Lion dancing to usher in good luck brought a smile to every student’s face, while dumplings help students connect and learn about traditional foods and treats.

Dragon Parade at BASIS Bilingual School Shenzhen

Primary Grades

Primary students continue to learn more about Chinese culture and heritage through a variety of activities. At BASIS International School Nanjing, students created lucky packets, wrote blessings and good wishes down, and gave them to their friends, classmates, family members, and school staff. Showing love and gratitude is an important attribute not only during Chinese New Year, but for the rest of the year as well, and activities such as these allow students to cultivate these qualities.

At BASIS International Schools Hangzhou and Guangzhou, older primary students learned about the tradition of lantern riddles, wrote their own Chinese riddles, and guessed the answers to their classmates’ creations.

Chinese New Year lantern riddle guessing

Students guess the answer to their classmates’ riddles.

Secondary Grades

Chinese culture and history take center stage in the secondary grades, as students participated in quiz games about Chinese culture, tried paper-cutting activities, practiced writing Chinese couplets, and studying Chinese poetry. Peking Opera lessons brought students into the heart of traditional culture as they learned about the singing, dancing, acting, and acrobatics incorporated into its performing techniques with four different roles: Sheng, Dan, Jing, and Chou.

Peking Opera costumes at BASIS International School Park Lane Harbour

BASIS International School Shenzhen show off their Peking Opera masks.

Chinese calligraphy is also an important part of Chinese New Year. Secondary students at BASIS International School Park Lane Harbour practiced their writing by creating Spring Festival couplets to wish themselves academic success and happiness for the world.

Students at BASIS International School Park Lane Harbour show off their calligraphy.

Wishing Trees

At several of our campuses, wish trees were displayed and students, faculty, and staff were given the opportunity to write down and place their wishes for the new year on the tree. Wishes for health, academic success, and good fortune, paired alongside gratitude towards teachers and staff, foster school community and a positive atmosphere for the coming year.