Happy Chinese New Year!

We're looking forward to a wonderful year of the dragon. Clean homes with blooming flowers in vases will bring good fortune through the year.

Firecrackers were invented in China. They are lit throughout the 15 day festival.

Here is a nice little string of paper firecrackers to make.

First, give each child a pretzel stick (not to eat just yet!), several pieces of red paper that are about 3 inches by 5 inches and a 2 foot piece of string.

Roll a piece of the red paper around the pretzel stick. Tape it.

Use a small awl and piece of carpet felt from a paper punching activity to punch a hole through the center of the tube (firecracker).

Tie a knot at the end of the string. Push the other end of the string through the hole in each "firecracker" to make a "string of firecrackers"!

Hang them around the room.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Practicing making Chinese characters with these little overlay booklets. Each one shows the strokes for making a single Chinese character for a word. The pages are transparent to show how to build the character. Since each character fits into a square, plain paper divided into squares is used for practice. We use individual small squares of paper.

Happy Chinese New Year!

On Monday morning several students were dressed in red. Ready to welcome a new year. This is M.L. and A.T. (measuring). L.W. also looked her best, and brought a delicious snack of Asian treats.