Bamboo Garden News, Jan. 20th-23rd, 2009

Important dates:
1/31 Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration at Shu Ren School. 3:00PM-5:30PM
2/7 Solano Lunar New Year Parade. Starts at 11:00AM
2/16 President’s Day. School Closed.
2/17-2/20 Winter Camp. Extended day care provided. Please sign up for the Camp at the Administrative Office.

Dear parents,

“新年快乐xin nian kuai le ” (Happy New Year). As you already know, our Chinese New Year Celebration at Shu Ren is coming soon on Jan. 31st, 2009. All pre-K children are excited for it. Here is the schedule for that day from the Head of School:

We would like to have our students be at the school at 3pm so that we will have some time to get ready for their performance. (Shu Ren Pre-K children, please dress in Chinese outfits. If you don’t have one, please let me or Sophie (Luca’s mom) know and you can borrow one from Luca.)

-3:00pm – 3:30pm: Arrival
-3:30pm – 4:15pm: Performance by Shu Ren students (pre-K, K/first grade classes and after-school program)
-4:15pm – 5:30pm: Arts and Crafts (making lanterns etc…), food (Thank you Nathan for the dim sum), and Shu Ren tours

For the following week, Feb. 7th, here is the schedule of the Solano Lunar New Year Parade from the Head of School: (If your child is not able to participate, please let me know in advance, thank you!)
- It starts at 11:00am
- We will need to get ready for the parade 10:30 – 10:45am.
- Please have Chinese outfits ready.

Last week: We introduced what are the lucky phrases we say on Chinese New Year and the meaning of the lucky phrases.

This week: We continue practicing our songs, and our dragon is almost ready for the pre-K children’s performance. We introduce the food we eat on Chinese New Year. I especially want to thank Katherine (Desmond’s mom) for her help making the dragon and her great ideas.

Music: We continue practicing two songs for the Chinese New Year celebration
Activity: 1. Say “恭喜 恭喜” (gongxi gongxi) to your friends
2. Say Magic words when you visit your friends on Chinese New Year

Tuesday: We watched and celebrated Obama’s Inauguration. We made American flags.

Wednesday: (Social study, Language) We introduced the dumplings that we usually have on Chinese New Year. Because of the shape of the dumpling, it similar to 元宝 (yuan bao-an odd-shaped gold or silver ingot formerly used as money). We had a dumpling cooking class for lunch. Thanks to Jie and Ping for all their help.

Thursday: (language, art) The dumpling shapes are like 元宝. So, we hope as the new year starts, we will earn more money in the new year. We will say a lucky phrase, “恭喜发财”(gong xi fa cai), to people. We made paper dumplings. Every child made 3 paper dumplings.

Friday: (PE, language) We reviewed all we have learned. Apple- 平平安安(ping ping an an), Orange-大吉大利(da ji da li), fish- 年年有余(nian nian you yu), dumplings- 恭喜发财(gong xi fa cai)。Those are the foods that we usually see in Chinese New Year. We had an activity “saying a magic word.” Four children held different gold cards with images of food. They were in their house. The rest of the children held the same pictures of food on red cards. If children who held a red card wanted to get into the house of the children who held gold cards, they needed to say the magic words: 平平安安, 大吉大利, 年年有余, 恭喜发财.

Next week, We will need to practice the dragon dance to be ready for our performance.

Thanks, 谢谢
Pei-Pei, 贝贝
Jan, 25, 2009

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