We really enjoy learning about other cultures at our school. Learning about the Lunar New Year is especially fun . What better excuse to celebrate!?
Red is a lucky color during the Lunar New Year. It is bright and festive and really makes our school come alive.
It is also a wonderful time to talk about different foods (and maybe try some!), and to teach that other cultures have feasts with family and friends like we do for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
During the Lunar New it is customary for children to receive “lucky red” packets or envelopes.
Beatrix was excited to give all the children a lucky red packet/envelope:
He also included some “lucky” B money:
Beatrix is pretty excited about “his” year!
We played drums and made lots of noise to celebrate and to scare away all of the “bad luck” from last year.
To start the week off, we had a parade at school with a dragon and a lion! Our kindergarten class made the dragon and our transitional kindergarten class made the lion. Impressive, right?
We watched lion dances on the projector:
Maybe Beatrix and Berto want to do a lion dance too?
I love being able to do even more activities during my after school classes. We had a small Lunar New Year feast and tried a few new things using chopsticks. Chopsticks are really wonderful for the children’s fine motor skills, so not only are the children having fun but they are building their muscles.
There is a lot of bang for the buck in this activity. The children work on their listening skills as I tell them what color gummy bear to pick up with the chopsticks. We slowly fill our containers and then count them.
Beatrix loved the rabbit puppets we made:
We finished the day with a very loud parade down the hall.
Happy New Year from Berto and Beatrix!
Take a field trip to Chinatown with me here:
Find more ideas to go with this book here: