Chinese New Year

The kids were pointing out red everywhere, excitedly thinking that it was all decorations for Chinese New Year.  The ropes at the park were red, the car driving past was red, they saw a red flag...it was all in celebration.  I let them go ahead and think that.

We learned about the sound C and H make when put together.  Now whenever Ethan is an 'H' he yells out "for China!"  

I did this activity more for the older kids to practice their number writing. We were talking about Chinese New Year and what a Year was.   I had a calendar we weren't using, so I used a highlighter to write the numbers in each of the boxes and had the kids trace them.  I was surprised by how this captured Ethan's attention.  He loved tracing the numbers.  Gavin also stayed at the table to finish every number, even though everyone else was done.

We made this Dragon Snack (in honor of it being the year of the dragon).  The kids were so excited about eating their dragons they could barely sit down and wait for them to come to the table!

We worked on some fine motor skills using chopsticks.  I had the kids pick up beads and sort them by kind.

We used this idea and used stamps to make fingerprints, and turn them into chinese lanterns.

Our friend Shing (aka Shirley) came to teach the kids more about China.  She taught them about the importance of the colors Red (for Luck and Happiness) and Gold (for Power and Fortune).  She also explained that fish is always served for Chinese New Year because the Chinese word for 'fish' is pronounced the same as their word for 'left over'.  So, if you have fish, you will have more than enough for your needs for the coming year.  She gave the kids each a bag of goldfish and some chinese treats.

We had a big Chinese Dinner to celebrate with family.  Brielle helped me make the fortune cookies.  She wanted to write the 'jokes' that go inside them.  It was taking her a long time to do individual fortunes (she was trying to come up with something different for each of the 20 people that would be at the party), and we ran out of time.  I scanned one of her fortunes and copied it for everyone. 

Our friend made these cute dragons out of rice krispy treats and fruit roll ups.  They were a big hit at the party.

Brielle ended the week by going to see the Shanghai Acrobatics performance at the community college.    She loved seeing the amazing tricks that were done and told us all about it.

Ethan took this picture.  You can't tell by Brielle's face, but she was actually having fun.  She got out the atlas and asked about China.  She then kept me there asking questions about every single page.  She wouldn't let me skip pages either, we had to go one at a time.  

We also found a documentary called Wild China that was quite fascinating.  We only watched the 1st episode, so we'll have to catch up on the others (make next year for Chinese New Year again!) 

We made paper fans after watching a clip of Chinese Umbrella Dancers.

We took a tour of the Great Wall of China on google earth, and decided we'd all like to visit China someday.