Children, teachers and staff at the Ark pre-school enjoyed celebrating the Chinese New Year of the pig, welcoming a visit  by Amy Chang from Liphook’s Happy Valley Chinese restaurant.

Amy took along traditional decorations and transformed the premises at the Church Centre with red banners and lanterns into a Chinese festival.

She explained to the children how the new year is celebrated in China and offered them all noodles, dumplings and spring rolls, which were freshly cooked at her restaurant. They enjoyed tasting the different dishes and were also shown how to use chopsticks.

Each child was given a fortune cookie and loved hearing the message hidden inside, which was a surprise.

Children had also made a Chinese dragon and treated Amy to a special dragon dance in the classroom.

Throughout the week, they made sparkly red envelopes to hold chocolate coins, Chinese lanterns, dragon puppets and told dragon stories.