february 1
Happy Chinese New Year!
We had fun trying on traditional Chinese clothing that Sylvie brought from home to share. Rigel especially loved dressing up! We then finished up our paper lantern project by cutting slits along the horizontal edge and attaching the handle with tape. We’re learning how to hold scissors correctly (two fingers on the bottom, thumb on the top, open the mouth and go chomp chomp chomp) and it’s hard! Some of us had very tired fingers by the time we finished cutting along all of the lines.
Right as we were adding the finishing touches to our lanterns, Mrs. Chiao Chiao came to visit us. We were so excited and told her all about how we made our lanterns. She taught us how to say “Happy New Year” in Chinese and how to hold our hands properly when we say it. We were nervous at first to say something that sounded so different than anything we’d heard before, but Mrs. Chiao Chiao told us she was there to help, so we tried and it wasn’t as challenging as we had thought.
The next thing that happened was our favorite. Mrs. Chiao Chiao brought us presents — a tiny red packet for each Pawpaw! She showed us how to properly accept the gift with two hands. Inside the packet was a quarter! We don’t know what we’re going to buy with our quarter, but we’re very excited about it.
While we enjoyed some traditional Chinese New Year foods like dumplings and Nián-Gāo (thanks to Ridley!!), Mrs. Chiao Chiao read us a story about Ruby and her adventure to Grandma’s house. We learned about the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac and about how eating sweet foods means you’ll have a sweet new year. The book taught us that Rigel, Autumn and Sylvie were all born in the year of the Rooster — and Ridley was born in the year of the Dog. We thought that was funny!
After the story, we each got a tangerine and then chose someone to give it to as a gift. Giving away tangerines, oranges, and pears is a New Year tradition in China. Then we ate our tangerines and gave Mrs. Chiao Chiao a gift. It was a lavender candle wrapped inside a special box we decorated. We were so excited for her to smell it :)
We said goodbye and thank you to Mrs. Chiao Chiao before heading outside to the park. We visited our favorite climbing tree and made an obstacle course that included: a bowl of tangerines (on which you say “Happy New Year!”), a gratitude sun, snowflakes, shapes, swirls, a stop sign, a spider web, and snow balls.
Back at school, we put battery-powered candles inside each lantern and decided to use them as nightlights during rest time. We love how they turned out!
We ended our day with some dancing and a round of Go Fish. We’re still learning how to play the card game, but enjoyed asking friends for cards and got very excited when we found a match.