Happy Lunar New Year!

Today I co-oped at Chloe's pre-school and we celebrated the lunar new year as a class. Chloe's pre-school teacher, Mrs. S, was so fantastically supportive of celebrating as a class. I had approached her several weeks ago about the special celebration and she was totally on board with whatever I wanted to do. She was at school early setting up the special crafts I bought for the class to make and she had read up on the holiday, making notes to share with the class.

A few weeks ago I ordered some items through China Sp*rout--a Chinese New Year CD, CNY decorations and a book about celebrating the CNY with children. The book gave me lots of ideas and also told how to make the dragon for the dragon dance/parade. I also ordered Year of the Ox red envelopes.

Chloe was excited to have me at school today as well as celebrating a special holiday with her classmates, who knew nothing of the lunar new year. Yesterday, we went to the Asian supermarket and bought food for the celebration. Chloe and I also made our own fortune cookies.

Class started with the usual circle time and the Mrs. S shared the story of why the lunar new year is celebrated and she asked Chloe to share some about the holiday as well. Chloe shared how to say happy new year in Chinese, "Gung Hay Fat Choy!" and she was so excited to tell the class that we were going to do a dragon dance to scare the evil spirits away. In Chloe's excitement she also shared that she had been to Chinatown in London and fed her Dad with chopsticks. She remembered this, which is pretty impressive considering it was in 2006.

After circle time, the kids did crafts. I had bought and brought in four craft activities (a little over-zealous, I know). Two crafts, a Chinese New Year sticker scene and a dragon wand went home with the students in their backpacks. The other two we did in class. I had bought some Chinese new year stamps and a self-stick dragon decoration as well, so the students made those items. Every student wanted "Gung Hay Fat Choy!" written on their artwork, it was very cute. I purchased all the crafts kits from Or*iental Tra*ding.

After the crafts and a little free-play, it was story time. I had brought in this book...

and Mrs. S read to the class while Chloe and I prepared snack.

I made some lo mein noodles, chicken dumplings, a homemade fortune cookies with special, age-appropriate fortunes like "you will have a playdate soon" inside. We also brought mandarin oranges and chopsticks for every child too. The dumplings and the chopsticks were a hit.

After snack came the highlight of the day. I told the students about the dragon parade and how the dragon scares away evil spirits and brings good luck in the new year. We brought out our homemade dragon and Chloe banged a gong (a.k.a. a aluminium pan) three times to wake the dragon and then she drew in the eyes to wake him up. The kids couldn't wait to parade through the school halls in the dragon and each child took turns wearing the dragon mask. It was so darling and the kids had a great time.

I didn't think the dragon parade would end, but luckily the mothers arrived for pick-up and convinced their children it was time to go. Chloe and I handed out red envelopes to all the kids with chocolate gold coins inside.

The best part of the day was when several children came to thank me for bringing in the special snack, art and crafts and to help them learn about the "other new year".

Chloe felt very special and was so proud. She came home and wanted to work on the other two crafts immediately after school. Tonight we are going to continue the celebration by dining at a local Chinese restaurant that has special activities to celebrate the new year.

Happy Lunar New Year and Happy Year of the Ox!