How do you bring a festival with over 2,000 years of history to life for young Mandarin learners in Auckland?
Last week, our students at Kohia Terrace School (KTS) and Churchill Park School (CPS) celebrated Duānwǔ Jié (Dragon Boat Festival) through hands-on learning, creativity, and family involvement. For KTS, this was our biggest Dragon Boat Festival celebration in the past three years. For CPS, it was their very first.
Learning Through Culture
Students explored the story behind the festival and learned key Mandarin phrases such as duānwǔ jié (Dragon Boat Festival), zòngzi (sticky rice dumplings), nónglì (lunar calendar), and sài lóngzhōu (dragon boat racing). They also did a Dragon Boat Festival word search.
To bring the festival to life, they were given trays and paddle sticks to take home and transform into dragon boats. With support from their families, simple materials became extraordinary creations.
A Celebration of Creativity and Clever Thinking
The finished boats were incredible. Some students showed strong engineering thinking through structure, balance, and movable paddles, while others used shoe boxes, cardboard, fabric, blue crystals, and glitter to build imaginative scenes.
Each boat reflected creativity, problem-solving, and storytelling. More importantly, many became family projects — parents and children working side by side, building, discussing, and learning together.
This is something we value at Pistachio: creating an inclusive learning environment where parents can be part of the learning journey and see their child’s Mandarin come to life.
Learning Beyond the Classroom
A special highlight this year was welcoming guest speaker Shane Liu, founder of Sumthin Dumplin, who shared why learning Mandarin matters to his family. Shane spoke about wanting his daughter to learn Chinese in a fun and engaging way — very different from his own childhood learning which was centred on memorisation, and something he did not enjoy.
His story strongly reflected what we believe at Pistachio: language learning should be practical, fun and connected to real life experiences.
More Than Just Language
Parents joined us for the celebration. With drum rolls, winners were announced in Mandarin using guànjūn (first place), yàjūn (second place), and jìjūn (third place), adding to the excitement.
More than anything, this celebration showed that Mandarin learning is at its best when children can build it, celebrate it, and share it with their families.
We are proud of every student and grateful to the parents who helped make this celebration so special.
Watch the full Dragon Boat Festival video here.
Curious to See This Kind of Learning Up Close?
Hands-on, culture-rich lessons like these are how we teach. If you’d like your child to experience Mandarin that’s practical, fun and memorable, our Saturday group classes at Kohia Terrace School offer a free trial lesson. Come and see what a session feels like.
Enquire now to book your free trial!
If you’d like your child to experience Mandarin in a practical, fun, and culturally rich way, we invite you to join one of our classes and experience it for yourself.