Lunar New Year

Here are a few of my favourite Chinese New Year books to read aloud.  Ms. Hong, our librarian, read us The Magic Brush by Kat Yeh, a tale of a grandfather who teaches his young granddaughter Chinese characters through storytelling.  It was the perfect introduction to calligraphy as the children began making Chinese firecrackers to decorate the classroom.  They painted Chinese characters for words like 'friend', 'love' and 'happiness' in black paint and added gold glitter to decorate their red toilet paper roll firecrackers.  

 

The class made these colourful and festive cityscapes covered in red and yellow lanterns to kick start our Lunar New Year celebrations in class.  They remind me of Chinatown!  This idea is from the blog, lets go fly a kite.  We'll be learning more about Lunar New Year traditions and festivities over the next couple of weeks.  2013 is the year of the Snake which begins on February 10th.  

gluing on the buildings, strips of recycled Chinese newspapers

making the buildings different colour and sizes

then they stamped red and yellow lanterns on top using recycled  lids

when dry, they added details to the lantern using sharpies

gung hay fat choy

Happy New Year

We are half way through January and I think we're finally starting to get used to saying 2013.  It has definitely taken some time to retrain our brains, especially during calendar time each morning.  Ringing in the New Year is a popular time to set goals and resolutions for the year ahead.  The kids wrote their own resolutions for 2013.  I asked the kids if they stayed up until midnight on New Year's Eve and we graphed their answers on a t-chart on the board.  Half the class stayed up until 12:00am while the other half were deep in sleep.  We practiced hooting and hollering "HAPPY NEW YEAR" before photographing our best party faces.  Then, we decorated party hats to adorn the portraits.

In 2013 I will help my parents do the dishes more.

In 2013 I will at my house everyday I will do exercise.

In 2013 I will read Cinderella.

Here are the resolutions the children made.

In 2013 I will…

learn dancing. Stella
study more about dodos (birds). Vienna
help my parents do the dishes more. Alexandra
surprise my Dad by shaking my whole house. Van
help my parents, read harder words, exercise more. Dong Won
help my family with work. Sophie
make the world's biggest bubble (gum). Ocean
jog lots and in the rain. (hey, this was mine!) Nevaeh
draw better. Alex
read Cinderella. Aaliyah
go for thirty sit-ups. Henry
juggle tennis balls. Noel
read harder books. Kelly
at my home everyday I will do exercise. Irada
practice tai kwon do. Ram
help my sister Kaylee read a book. Karrie
do art with my family. Valentina
build a big lego ship.  Pierre
make the world's biggest bubble (gum). Damian
read harder books. Dhakin