February is Chinese New Year (Lunar New Year) Month!! This is our unit for the preschooler (she is 3)
It is so exciting because I LOVE CNY!
We played animal zodiac Bingo. I made my own. But you can get printable ones here
It is so exciting because I LOVE CNY!
We read these
We were so blessed to have a friend who is a teacher at a Mandarin Preschool and she invited us to their CNY party. It kicked off our month so well! These are the goodies we got from the party
Lil Sis and Baby Sis did this craft at the party. This is the year of the monkey.
We also tasted some fun foods, like 發糕(a kind of steamed cake, signifying prosperity), 蘿蔔糕 (turnip cake, signifying, good fortune, 好彩頭), oranges (signifying blessedness, 吉祥） and apples（signifying peace, 平安）. Many foods in Chinese New Year have special meanings due to their sounds.
These are the other foods we had this month
包子 Buns - 包銀
金瓜 Pumpkin (Golden Gourd) with Brocc and chicken - gold, prosperity
We talked about heaven having streets of gold.
We ate the 發糕 (Fa Gao) at the New Year Party: 發財 (prosperity)
Fishballs. Anything that is "round" is good for New Year, signifying complete and bliss
SWEETS! A sweet year.
This is what we ate for New Year's Eve. YUM!!
Fish - abundance
Turnip Cake (蘿蔔糕) -彩頭Good fortune
Veg - ditto
Chicken - sounds like family 家 in Taiwanese
Spring rolls - Like gold bars
竹筍豆腐皮 bamboo shoots- 竹報平安 peace
北京烤鴨
We made dumplings on the first day of Chinese New Year. The dumplings are like gold nuggets (元寶)
年糕Nian Gao. Sticky Rice Cake. I like it fried in a batter of flour, egg and water.
年年高升 (progress every year)
旺來 (Ong Lai) in Hokkien, means comes prosperity
Noodles: Longevity
Oranges. 吉祥 Blessedness/fortune
Fun games from this download
Counting games
We watched a lion dance at the party (and also through videos)
Then we made a lion dance puppet
We made different lanterns. This one takes very little work.
Fish has the same sound as "surplus" in Chinese. So fish is good symbol for Chinese New Year. I also taught the kids that in the bible, we learnt we must be fishers of men! This fish craft is fun to do. I used the "rainbow fish" template from here.
Red sparkly play dough!!
Red packet made by Big Sis
Lantern made by Lil Sis
We got this new book for Baby Sis and she has a lot of fun with it
The RED page was so fun for CNY!
I do like this book. I think it's reasonably priced (about $6), has lots of great colors. VERY easy for the 3 year old. And nice stickers. I would probably get another sticker book for her but this one has lots to do.
Fan. Instructions here
Decoration
Dragon Dance puppet
Coloring pages
painting toilet paper rolls for the fire cracker craft
Toilet Paper firecracker craft (complete with glitter)
Chinese Hat!
Bingo is always more fun when played with snacks. When they get their own zodiac sign or Monkey, they get double points. =)
These are the training chopsticks we use at home.
Got the tongs from Dollar Tree so we tried that too.
Monkey Box. She painted, mommy did the box.
Drawing Koi Fish. Mommy did a lot of the drawing and she did the painting (and some drawing).
Easy Tissue Plum Blossoms. 梅花
Lanterns!
Dragon for my little dragon lady. =)
And that's a great wrap!! Now on to March: BEARS!! We are going to have such a blast!
We watched all kinds of videos, from firecrackers, lion dance or dragon dance, to cartoons on Chinese New Year.
Our favorite is still this Singaporean produced short film 回家過年
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