Guo Nian Hao! aka Happy New Year! Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday celebrated in China! Many local schools take a whole month off to celebrate, visit family, or go on vacation. Because my school already had 2 weeks off for the Christmas holiday in December, we get another 2 weeks off for Chinese New Year. I love having this break! Currently I'm on my second week off from school. Last week I traveled to Chengdu, the city famous for the nation's beloved iconic animal, the Giant Panda.
Aren't they adorable?!
Couldn't resist only sharing one photo with you!
Every year, my school organizes an event at our school to celebrate our host country-- China. We call it China day and set up the gymnasium with many different activities students and families can participate in. We also let the kids dress up in traditional Chinese clothes or wear red.
Here's me and my class with a Sheep mascot. :)
I did many of the same activities I used last year with my current class. Read my last year's post (CLICK HERE)of different ideas on what I did!
If you're still looking for an easy writing activity for your kids, I have a freebie for this year's Year of the Sheep. Click on the picture below!
Now I'm heading off to see more fireworks go off in my neighborhood!
I just arrived back from my spring break trip from Guilin, China. As I am checking out my emails, catching up on TONS of blogs, and looking at my own blog, I realized I never added a China blog button letting my readers know of my current status of where I live and teach at.
So here is a new blog button I created to start searching for other fellow expats working and living in China, whether they are teaching English, homeschooling, working at an international school, or stay home parent. I wanted to see if there are many other expats working and living in this great, big country! I also created a new page for easy access for future reference. I would create a linky party but I don't know how to extend it for more than 30 days...anyone know how to do this?
If you are a blogger, living and working in China, I would love to connect with you! Add this button onto your blog and comment below so I can check you out too!
In my last post, I talked about my first Chinese New Year holiday without my family, living in China, and how we celebrated this awesome holiday at the international school I teach at. Today I will share some of the crafts and activities we did to celebrate CNY.
In our ECC lobby, each student decorated a paper plate to add to our dragon body. I love how it turned out. Our principal and her husband (an art teacher) created and designed the head. We got this idea from this site.
We punched a hole at the top of the paper plates and used a paper clip to attach the plate to a wire string hanging on the ceiling.
I gave my students a bunch of different materials to decorate. They could use markers, crayons, feathers, glitter, stickers, pipe cleaners, etc. I let them use both glue and tape since the tape could hold the bulkier things down.
Since it is the Year of the Horse, we made CNY horse signs to hang up by our door. The Chinese like to surround their door with good luck and well wish signs for the new year. This always reminds me of the Bible account where people would paint their doors with blood during the Passover.
This craft was simple. You can download the horse templates {here}. Print the big octagon on red paper and the small octagon on white paper. Add yarn or ribbon with some beads (I used yellow and red to match the Chinese color schemes) and glitter. The Chinese character above the horse is called "ma" in Mandarin.
Another day we made a famous Chinese snack in our city and many others called Tanghulu. Tanghulu are sugar candied fruits on bamboo skewers. The most famous fruit the Chinese use are hawthorns. But you can also use small oranges, strawberries, or kiwis.
Hawthorn berries are very tart and sour. The candied sugar coating helps sweeten the fruit. When biting into the Tanghulu, sometimes the hawthorn is still sour causing your face to squish up.
Here's how to make this easy, yummy treat. First get 1 part sugar and 1 part water (I believe the TAs used about 1 cup of each ingredient) and let it sit and boil in the pan. DO NOT STIR the mixture. The mixture bubble up. I think we waited about 10-15 minutes.
As you are letting it boil, start skewering the fruit.
Then dip the skewered fruit into the pan and let the sugar harden. The sugar should be hard like a lollipop. It might take another 10 minutes to completely dry. Use a Styrofoam ball or vase to stick the skewers in or the sugar will get stuck on the plates.
Tanghulu is typically sold on the streets as a snack.
Another famous Chinese snack we made were homemade dumplings or in Chinese it is called Gyoza. Our kitchen staff made the meat filling and dumpling dough. Then we had one of our ayi's (school helper) teach us how to roll, fill, and wrap a dumpling. It is a lot harder than it looks.
Here's a YouTube to show you how to do it.
Here are some pictures of my kindergarteners folding their own dumplings. We boiled them and ate them when we were finished make them!
Link back and let me know if you tried making Tanghulu or dumplings at home or in school! Many of my students (including some Chinese students) never had this before until we made it.
Happy Chinese New Year!
The month of January has been a very busy for me because it is sandwiched by two important holidays, Christmas and Chinese New Year. At the international school I teach at, we get two weeks off for Christmas, then 3 weeks of school, and then another two weeks off for Chinese New Year.
I feel very blessed to basically get a double holiday break. Since I am Chinese American, this Chinese New Year was a little strange for me. This is the first Chinese New Year I spent without my family. I miss eating my mom's homemade Chinese food and the big banquets we would have in Ohio. Sadly there is only a handful of good Chinese restaurants in my hometown state. I miss collecting all of my red envelopes from relatives, family friends, and church friends. On Skype, my Mawmaw (grandma) in Hong Kong teased me by flashing my red envelope on the screen saying I had to come visit her to receive it.
Instead, I went to the Philippines with two of my co-workers to relax on the sunny beaches and away from the wintery weather of Northern China.
Laying by the pool among the coconut trees
I didn't want to leave the Philippines!
Below are a few pictures I did with my Kindergarteners on the Friday before Chinese New Year break. Our school had "China Day" where everyone was encouraged to dress in traditional Chinese clothes and/or wear red if they didn't own any. I wore my mother's Qi Pao (Woman's dress) that she wore at her wedding banquet. :)
Photo booth
Making rice cakes with different flavor jelly on top
Chinese calligraphy
Listening to Chinese stories and folktales
This man is creating beautiful pictures made out of melted candy sugar
Lion dance
Some of the kindergarteners performing a Chinese song.
Watching the firecrackers in our school's courtyard.
Kinders played with ribbon streamers while dancing to Chinese New Year songs.
Lion and Dragon dance in the auditorium.
If you visit my TpT and TN stores, check out my Chinese New Year Thematic unit that is on for sale for 50%. Many of the activities and crafts in the unit I remembered doing as a child when my mom would visit my classroom to share about Chinese New Year and Chinese culture. The links are on the right sidebars.
Come back later this week to see what else I did in my classroom to celebrate CNY.
Within a week or two I will be jet setting to China to start my new adventure and I cannot wait to share all of my stories with you. If you look at the top of my blog, you can see I added a Page called Life In China. This is where I will link all of my China stories not related to teaching in one spot.
My great news is I am now contributor for Global Teacher Connect. This is a collaborative blog of teachers around the world that share their stories on how to educate global learners. Hopefully in the near future I can start posting my thoughts and ideas as I become a global teacher in China.
One of the best things I found as I blog is meeting so many teachers from the US and across the globe. It is exciting how everyone can communicate through the web and share stories and ideas with one another. I am excited to join this particular group because it features teachers who teach outside of the United States. I am thrilled to join this special group because even though I call the US (particularly Illinois) my home, this year I will be starting my teaching career in CHINA!
This will be an unique experience for me since I will be teaching Kindergarten at an International school. I can't wait to meet all of my kiddos who come from all walks of life. Many of my students include Americans, Koreans, Japanese, French, and Canadian.
If you're a blogger from outside the US, I would love to hear from you so I can start following your blog! I figured I needed to follow more global teachers to learn from you all!
Don't forget to stop by the blog to check out the other global teachers!
PS- I also added a Kindergarten Blogger button on my right sidebar. (It's above the I'm an Illinois Blogger button) Click on it to join other Kindergarten bloggers! If you don't teach kindergarten you can still click on the button to find your grade level button! :)
