Level 2: Activity 1

How do customs and traditions begin and why do they continue?

Let's celebrate!

Show these celebration photos and decide as a class what the word "celebration" means. List the student's ideas on the white board.

Together, build up a list of celebrations the students know about or have been part of. For example birthdays, Christmas, Guy Fawkes, Halloween, Valentine's Day, the Chinese New Year, celebrations on Waitangi Day, or Diwali.

In pairs and on a piece of A3 paper the students draw a venn diagram. They pick some celebrations they enjoy and list them in the left and right circles. In the middle of the diagram, the intersection, the students list words or phrases that display themes or activities that are common to their celebrations.

Share the diagrams as a class and see what the common themes are. For example, laughter, fun, tasty food, colour, special friends and whanau and special clothes.

Talking heads

Get each student to draw a big talking head - a colourful cartoon character about A4 size. Inside a speech bubble they write a simple poem.

Cut out, glue and display all the talking heads as a giant mural of celebration.

View the mural together as a class and ask: Do celebrations continue today for all these reasons?

Level 2: Activity 2

How celebrations and festivals have come to New Zealand from other places.

Examples:

• Valentines Day
• Thanksgiving
• Children's Day
• Halloween
• Guy Fawkes
• Diwali
• Christmas
• Easter
• Olympic Games
• Hanukkah
• Ramadan
• Dragon Boat Festival
• White Sunday
• Highland Games
• St Patrick's Day
• Bar and Bat Mitzvah
• Birthdays
• Wedding traditions

Photo match

Choose some celebrations from the list above or select celebrations that reflect the cultures of your class and community.

Gather or print off celebration images that represent each of the celebrations you choose. Make up matching celebration flash cards for the photos which name the celebration and its country of origin. You may wish to add library books to match the countries each celebration comes from.

Display the books, photos and cards around the class but don't match them up. Give time for your students to walk around in pairs and decide which book, photo and flash card belongs together. Nothing is moved at this stage.

In pairs, with the class as an audience, the students can select a matching photo, book and flashcard and transfer them to a display based around a world map. The pairs justify their selection and as a class decide if the choices are the right ones.

Level 2: Activity 3

How the same celebrations can be enjoyed in different ways.

We celebrate like this

Each small group picks from a hat, a card that lists one celebration that people in New Zealand celebrate. Include days like the ones above but limit the number of celebrations to three or four. Each group comes up with a thought bubble that shows how New Zealanders celebrate this day.

Before sharing group ideas, the cards are put back in a hat again for another draw. Do this a few times with the groups writing a thought bubble each time. In this way you will have a number of different ideas about the same celebration, to share as a class. Look for similarities and differences then, as a class, look at different ways families celebrate one part of an occasion. For example, opening presents on birthdays or at Christmas.

Level 2: Activity 4

How did the customs and traditions of the Lantern Festival begin?

Numbered heads

Print off and laminate a selection of Lantern Festival photos so they can be passed from group to group. Or, use a data projector so all groups can see one photo at once.

Organise your students into groups of three, number each group member and ask the groups to look for things that are same or nearly the same in all the photos.

Give time for the ideas to flow and then call a number, one, two, or three and these students report their group's ideas back to the class.

Repeat the exercise with these two questions.

• What would be a good name for this celebration?
• Do you think this celebration started in New Zealand or has it come from somewhere else? How can you tell?

The story teller

This is one story about how the Lantern Festival began. Become a storyteller and tell it to your class.

Prepare question cards like these ones and give one card to every group of three. This time as you tell the story, the groups must listen very carefully for the answer to the question that is on their card. Get one person in each group to read out their question before you begin.

Give time for each group to consider their question and then select numbers again to report back to the class.

Our story board

Each group illustrates the answer to their question and these pictures can be displayed in the right order for a storyboard showing how the Lantern Festival began. Add the captions as a class once the pictures are displayed. Draw the pictures on big pieces of cartridge paper but limit the students to the traditional colours of red and black. Use crayon or pastel but encourage the students to blow up the characters so everything is big and bold. Use red dye to add extra colour.

Level 2: Activity 5

The Lantern Festival is all about people having fun. What customs and traditions add fun to the Lantern Festivals today?

The lights and lanterns

Discuss how the shape and illustrations on many of the lanterns come from the stories and characters in old Chinese folk tales. Many lanterns also have riddles on them which relate to the story.

Tell the story An Emperor Called Jade and decide on some possible lanterns that might spring from this story.

Show this photo and as a class make up a riddle that could go with these lanterns. Look here for advice on riddle writing.

Look here for six great folk tales. Print them out and share them among your more able readers so they have a folk tale they can read for themselves. Select a fairy tale to read to those students not yet ready to read one of their own.

Work on a riddle for your story with your group that listened to the story. Your independent readers can work on a riddle for their folk tale.

Meet as a class again and get your "listeners" to tell your "readers" their story. They can tell a small part each before another story teller takes over. They can ask their riddle and see if the readers can work out the answer.

The readers can now share their stories and riddles in the same way.

These riddles can later be pasted on the children's lanterns. Traditionally a visitor that guesses the answer to a lantern riddle wins a small prize.

Fine food and fireworks

The sweet dumplings or Yuanxiao share their name with the Lantern Festival and the name of the palace maid in this story.

Try this activity in pairs. This special recipe tells the students what to do. You might like to revisit the story of Yuanxiao the palace maid, before you begin.

Now for the fireworks

Fireworks and firecrackers are believed to be able to break the darkness and scare away demons and bad luck. They are also good fun! Perhaps that's the real reason why they are a part of the Lantern Festival.

Another special recipe has your students following the same format for an ancient fireworks recipe. They learn a little about the history of fireworks at the same time.