Schools

Rosemont School Students Celebrate Korean New Year

The school is hosting 12 Korean exchange students this month.

is hosting 12 Korean exchange students this month and recently held an assembly to celebrate the Lunar New Year, or Soelnal. 

The exchange students, through the Camp Korea program, arrived Jan. 10. Student presentations at a Jan. 20 assembly compared and contrasted U.S. and Korean New Year celebrations, and students sang “Auld Lang Syne” and a Korean folk song called “Arirang.”

American students talked about making (and breaking) New Year’s resolutions, and parades. Korean students explained the tradition of hanging a lucky bamboo scoop in the home and praying for luck and fortune, and older relatives giving “lucky money” to the youngest relatives if they’ve been good. Koreans also celebrate getting another year older on the New Year, rather than on the date of their birth.

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Rosemont School students learned how to play a Korean New Year board game called Yut Nori—which is similar to the American game “Sorry!” one student said.

“By coincidence, one boy brought the game with him,” said 7th grade teacher Jean Moore, who organized the assembly. “It was really fun to watch the kids play that game together. They picked it up quite well.”

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Prior to the students’ arrival, Moore’s class read “A Single Shard,” a Newbery Medal book, to learn about Korean culture.

Once there, students researched the New Year holidays together and found some commonalities, Moore said. American students said they were surprised to find how much they had in common with their Korean counterparts. 

The Korean students, from third to eighth grade, came to Rosemont School to better their English speaking and writing skills, and each visiting student is staying with a host family and is partnered with a Rosemont School student during the school day.

Students have taken weekend trips to New York City and Washington, D.C., and to visit Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, Moore said. 

This is the first time the Rosemont School has hosted Korean exchange students, Moore said. Part of Rosemont School’s mission is to build global awareness, according to a press release.


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