Bamboo Garden News, Jan 12th-16th, 2009

Important dates:
01/19 MLK Jr. Day. School closed.
01/26 Chinese New Year day. School closed.
01/31 Celebration party for Chinese New Year, 3-5:30pm, details will be updated later

Dear Parents:
“新年好，新年好”-Happy Chinese New Year. As Chinese New Year is coming, I appreciate that all children are trying hard to prepare for our performance, singing and dancing. We are very excited to show our hard work on Jan. 31st. Please look forward to it. I am hoping that all parents can prepare Chinese costumes for your children, if they are going to attend our Celebration event. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Last week: We introduced the story of WHY we celebrate Chinese New Year and three things that “年兽” (the demon Nian, who appears on Chinese New Year) is afraid of.
This week: The lucky phrases we say in Chinese New year and their meaning.
Music: 新年好! (新年好，新年好，大家团圆过新年，我们唱歌，我们跳舞，祝你牛年行大运)
恭喜 恭喜! (每条大街小巷，每个人的嘴里，见面第一句话，就是恭喜 恭喜，恭喜 恭喜恭喜 恭喜你呀，恭喜 恭喜恭喜 恭 喜你。)
Story: Nick’s Chinese New Year
Activity: Say “恭喜 恭喜” (gongxi gongxi) to your friends

Jan. 12th: (Language, art) We introduced that an apple means “平平安安”, which also means be safe in the next year. Also, we introduced that the new year will be 牛 (cow/ox) year. We had an art project about cows.
Jan. 13th: (Art) A fish represents “年年有余” which means we had abundance at the end of year. We created a fish project that we hung on the entrance to bamboo garden.
Jan. 14th: (Language, PE) We learned one more phrase “大吉大利”, and the symbol of the phrase is orange. We had a fun activity that one person was 年兽 and the rest of the people had to say one of the lucky phrases otherwise 年兽 would come get you. Through this activity, children remembered the phrases easily.
Jan. 15th: (PE, social study) We had children find their friends and use a jump rope to build their house. We sang 恭喜 恭喜 to get out of the rope house. Until we sang 恭喜 恭喜 恭喜 恭喜 你呀, their family members needed to go back to the house and say 恭喜 as well as a lucky phrase to each other.
Jan. 16th: (Language, art, science): We learned that lanterns are one of the things that 年兽 is afraid of. We had an art project using magnets and paper chips to decorate their own lantern. We put paper chips on the top of the paper and used a magnet to move the paper chip to create their own lantern.

PS. We didn’t take many pictures. As I’m busy to help all of the children in order to finish their project, it seems I had less time to take pictures. But I took pictures of their art work. Please enjoy them.

Thank you, 谢谢
Pei-Pei, 贝贝
Jan. 18, 2009