Tomorrow- February 3- is an important day because it is the start of Chinese New Year and the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit. Like Korean and Vietnamese cultures, Chinese New Year begins on the Lunar New Year.Around our home, we’re getting ready for the start of the new year. I’m spending the day cleaning the house to sweep out any bad luck because it’s customary to avoid cleaning for the first week or so of the New Year so you don’t sweep away good luck. Tomorrow Little Miss Techie and Captain Computer will wake up and eagerly say “Gung Hay Fat Choy” (Happy New Year in Chinese) in order to receive the red li see envelopes from each parent and will head off to school wearing something new.
How can you celebrate with your family besides ordering Chinese takeout?
- Print the story of the Chinese Zodiac to share with your family. Since each year is represented by one of 12 animals, use this Chinese Zodiac Sign Calculator to figure out which animals you are. I like the calculator because it takes into account your actual day of birth in figuring out which animal you are. Many calendars like those you see on placemats at Chinese restaurants follow the western calendar that begins on January 1. They don’t take into account that those with January birthdays (like Little Miss Techie) might fall under a different sign since Chinese New Year is determined by the lunar calendar. I also like that this site will give you a link so you can read and print the character traits for your animal sign. Did that make any sense?
- Make felt fortune cookies, dumplings, or a tray of oranges for your play kitchen. The oranges signify gold and prosperity for the new year while dumpling preparation the night before the start of the new year is a tradition.
- Recycle your toilet paper tubes into firecrackers to ward off evil spirits
- Decorate your house with paper lanterns or plum blossom branches
- Make or print li see envelopes to exchange with family members and fill them with lucky money. It is customary for married couples to give them to those who are unmarried. With my brother’s recent wedding, he’s now on the giving end, rather than the receiving end, of the li see!
- Have your own parade with dancing lion puppets
- Prepare a Tray of Togetherness. In my grandparents’ and parents’ house a square lacquer box whose different compartments were always filled with sweets like candied sweets of ginger, winter melon, lotus seeds, sliced taro root, crunchy water chestnuts, and coconut at this time of year. Our box may be an octagon plastic one but it’s filled with sweets that my parents sent and the kids and I are exercising restraint to not gobble up all of the winter melon and coconut. Make one at home by gathering 8 dishes and filling them with sweet treats. Eight is a lucky number! Note to my parents: please bring more!
- Read the following great picture books together to learn more about Chinese New Year customs:
Gung Hay Fat Choy (or Happy Chinese New Year!)
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Original post by Tech Savvy Mama
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Wow. I am all about not cleaning for the next week. Awesome.
Jack had an assignment about Chinese New Year in his reading packet, so we talked all about it yesterday. I think they might really enjoy checking out some of these activities. Thanks!!
새해 복 많이 받으세요 / Hang- bok-han sae-hae bo-nae-se-sae-yo
translates to “Receive a lot of new year’s blessing” in korean 🙂
Happy Chinese New Year!!
Great ideas here! I wrote a post of my own about celebrating Chinese New Year by trying kite flying with kids as a family project http://www.thebookchook.com/2011/02/lets-celebrate-chinese-new-year.html and am about to go add your link to it.
Good afternoon,
My name is Abby Herbert and I help to run a website offering hundreds of free foundation stage and key stage 1 teaching resources called Early Learning HQ (www.earlylearninghq.org.uk).
With Chinese New Year just around the corner again I thought I would just take a moment to draw your attention to the Celebrations and Festivals section on our site, where you will find numerous resources relating to this topic (as well as lots of other holidays). I’m sure that the the people that use your site will also find these resources useful (especially the teachers), so I was wondering if you would consider linking to our page? You can find our Celebration and Festival resources here: http://www.earlylearninghq.org.uk/celebrations-festivals/
I hope you find the resources useful, everything is created by me and a small team in Wales and it would be really nice if we could share them with more people. Let me know if there is anything else I can make for you.
Thank you,
Abby