Returning to work after the Christmas break, we found the children keen to revisit the Nativity play. Within the first week they had turned the classroom into a puppet theatre and created an impromptu puppet show telling the Nativity story, complete with singing, narration and actions. Puppets were fashioned from donated Christmas cards, cut up and stuck on the end of art straws.
During our next planning meeting we discussed these developments and decided to capitalise on the children's interest in storytelling and puppetry by introducing the story of the Willow Pattern Plate (see box). Chinese New Year is one of the themes on our long-term planning, so we decided to use this story as an introduction to Chinese culture and the traditional celebrations of Chinese New Year (which this year falls on 3 February).
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