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