We had a great time celebrating the Chinese New Year. We started the unit by by listening to stories about how New Years is celebrated in China. We also learned about their customs and traditions. Some of the stories we read were: Bringing in in the New Year, by Grace Lin, The Dancing Dragon, by Marcia Vaughan, and My First Chinese New Year, by Karen Katz.According to Chinese zodiac, The Year of the Goat/sheep starts on Feb. 19, 2015 (the Lunar New Year / Spring Festival of China) and lasts until Feb. 7, 2016. Goat/sheep is among the animals that people like the most. The goat is the eighth sign of the Chinese Zodiac, which consists of 12 animal signs.
Chinese New Year is a time when families get together to celebrate. In the days coming up to the New Year every family buys present, decorations, food, new clothes, and have their hair cut. Houses are cleaned from top to bottom. The aim is to sweep out any bad luck from the old year and clear the way for good luck. People greet each other by saying "Gung Hay Fat Choy"!, which means Happy New Year.
We prepared for our New Year's celebration by making red and gold fans with chopsticks and ribbon. We also made red drums. The children painted plates and decorated them with Chinese stickers, gold glitter, and bells. We also added a dowels to to each one of them to use as the handle. The drum was made to re-create a traditional Chinese instrument called the Bolang Gu, or a pellet drum. This instrument is used in Chinese ritual music as well as a children's toy.
We ate traditional holiday food for snack such as dumplings, oranges, and fortune cookies.
We finally celebrated the Chinese New Year with Jinmei (Bingyi's mother).
Jinmei made dragons with the children and brought in Yuanxiao, sweet dumplings, which are made with sticky rice flour and filled with a sweet stuffing. They were delicious, as you can see by Bingyi. She could not get enough of them! She also brought in some Chinese candy for the children to take home. Thank you Jinmei for helping us celebrate this happy holiday! We ended our celebration by singing a Chinese New Year song lead by Jinmei. She has such a beautiful voice!
We had a great time in music this week with Lisa. The children continued to practice rhythms with craft sticks. They also practiced playing the violin. The children pretended to be dragons, in honor of the Chinese New Year, by marching around the room draped in a large red scarf while singing the Chinese New Year Dragon song.
We also celebrated Iker's fourth birthday with his mother and grandfather, from Spain. The children enjoyed the delicious cake as well as the goody bags. Thank you Monica for the delicious treats.
We look forward to our Hundredth day of School Celebration on Monday.
Love,
Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara
Note: Please have your children arrive at school on time. We will be starting our morning meeting at 9:15. It is an important part of our day, where a great deal of learning takes place.
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