Chinese New Year

Studying education in a city school I was never really encouraged to celebrate holidays 

So many different students celebrated so many different things. 

Moving back to the district I am in now ... 

we do not see as much diversity in our students.

Growing up I did not feel that I was exposed to different cultural beliefs in the world because it was not directly around me. I try to take time throughout the year to highlight different holidays. I put them on the calendar, I share facts about each one, and every once in a while we can really dive into those holidays.

This year we dove into the Chinese New Year!

Our school library had this story...

My First Chinese New Year

by: Karen Katz

Students loved hearing about all of the unique traditions that this holiday held.

I found this free resource on TPT

We were able to look at key vocabulary terms from the story and place them in ABC order.

Friday we had special guests come in to share a bit more about this holiday ...

The kids really loved learning how to lion dance ....

Students had an opportunity to learn about their Zodiac Symbols

They received chocolate coins as children would on the new years celebration as well as book marks

Bubble wrap was passed out to each student to resemble fireworks and the new year celebration.

Things got noisy but boy did we have fun!

Here are a few other read alouds I would consider using in the future.
Thanks to Amazon for the descriptions and availability to be purchased.

Bella's Chinese New Year

by: Stacey Zolt Hara

This story is about An American girl living in Singapore, Bella is celebrating Chinese New Year at her school with a big party and we are all invited along. With her infectious smile and zest for life, Bella connects with the people and culture around her, making new friends and learning through her experiences. Appreciative of Singapore's customs and traditions, Bella guides us through orange exchanges with friends, the magical wish of a Lo Hei salad and the surprises kids find in shiny red envelopes during the New Year.

Bringing In the New Year

by: Grace Lin

This exuberant story follows a Chinese American family as they prepare for the Lunar New Year. Each member of the family lends a hand as they sweep out the dust of the old year, hang decorations, and make dumplings. Then it’s time to put on new clothes and celebrate with family and friends. There will be fireworks and lion dancers, shining lanterns, and a great, long dragon parade to help bring in the Lunar New Year. And the dragon parade in our book is extra long–on a surprise fold-out page at the end of the story. Grace Lin’s artwork is a bright and gloriously patterned celebration in itself! And her story is tailor-made for reading aloud.

Chelsea's Chinese New Year

by: Lisa Bullard

Chelsea's family is celebrating Chinese New Year! Chelsea gets to stay up late. She watches fireworks and a parade with a dragon! She and her family have a big feast. Find out the different ways people celebrate this special day! 

Dragon Dance

by: Joan Holub

It's Chinese New Year and there are so many fun things to do! Shopping at the outdoor market for fresh flowers, eating New Year's dinner with the whole family, receiving red envelopes from Grandma and Grandpa, and best of all-watching the spectacular Chinese New Year's parade! Introduce the customs of Chinese New Year to even the youngest readers with this festive new lift-the-flap book. 

Chinese Zodiac Animals

by: Sanmu Tang

Which Chinese zodiac animal are you? A clever rat? A brave tiger? A hardworking ox? Or an energetic dragon?

In ancient China, each sign marked a different year in a 12-year calendar. Over time, people believed that a person's character and destiny were somehow decided by his or her zodiac animal.

Chinese Zodiac Animals explains the traits of each animal sign and what luck the future might hold for the person born under that sign. Chinese Zodiac Animals is a fun and informative way to learn about an important part of Chinese traditional culture.

A literacy rich valentines

An unusual find but a cute story none the less ...

Will You Be My Valenswine?

by: Teresa Bateman

This is a great story about a little pig looking for love. 

He looks in so many different places but find that his mother loves him the most. 

We wrapped up this story with an craftivity and discussion about what love is ...

How adorable are they!

A new book to me this year was...

A Crakenstein Valentine

by: Samantha Berger

What a cute story about a little boy who does not like valentines day but finds someone who feels the same as him. My kids loved how the character changed at the end of the story.

We used these worksheets after reading this story.

Their illustrations also came out adorable!

Splat is always a classic ...

Love Splat

By: Rob Scotton

This is a classroom favorite. My kiddos love reading Splat books!

I used this story this week while discussing rhyming. 

We focused a great deal on short a word families and students did a great job identifying and extending their word families. 

I received the Love Monster from my Scholastic Order last month ...

Love Monster

by: Rachel Bright

My kids loved this story!

The monster was so interesting to them and they enjoyed his story about finding a friend.

After read the book we completed a sight word worksheet found here.

I read the story for a second time and as a group we listened for our sight words. 

Students then took their worksheet and copied their sight words into individual hearts. 

Another friend of mine uses this story in her classroom...

Mr. Prickles

By: Kara LaReau

What a great story to use while discussing feelings.

This is a book about  porcupine who does not have many friends because of his appearance but then makes another friend who looks just like him. It is a great story to incorporate into a unit while talk about feelings and whats on the inside that counts. 

One more favorite before we move onto some math...

Queen of Hearts

by: Mary Engelbreit

I love this story! It is about a little girl who makes her valentines day bag. She puts so much effort into making it beautiful that she forgets to make her valentines. She ends up giving away the items she used to make her box. 

This is a great story to also incorporate into a sharing unit.

In the past I used this story before we made our own valentines day boxes or bags.

I love incorporating candy or food with math and the kids love it too

Here is the candy graph I downloaded from TPT. 

The kids loved it!

I broke them up into groups of three and the worked together to separate, count, and graph their candy.

I also picked up these adorable tags for their Valentine's Day treats...

Waddle we do...

We had a waddle of fun this week with our penguin unit!

Finally NEPA is starting to feel like winter.

Students in Kindergarten enjoyed their first ever early dismissal and late starts.

I for one was also very excited to finally sleep in mid week :)

This week we were still able to enjoy our penguin unit to its fullest.

Just like every other week we started with conversations about what we know about penguins.

We completed this adorable craft where students practiced labeling the different parts of a penguin.

They came out great!

I took part of a TPT unit found here

We also read several fact books ... here are just a few:

I incorporated some measuring into our Penguin unit with this fun craft.

Instead of focusing on patterns in the penguins scarf we wrote down the two colors we used to make our pattern.

These came out adorable and after completing the activity we read

I am Pangoo the Penguin

by: Satomi Ichikawa

This is an adorable story about a penguin who is looking to find his place.

I loved how this lil guy also wore a scarf much like the one we made in our measuring project.

This week we also read

Tacky the Penguin

by: Helen Lester

Tacky was an odd bird but his unique characteristics saved the penguins!

As a group we talked about how our unique qualities make us great!

Lastly we read

One Cool Friend

by: Toni Buzzeo

This story was all about a well mannered little boy who gets a penguin as a pet.

The story was a great way to talk about how to be a cool friend!

Here is a worksheet we worked on

Check out some of the other things we have been doing in math

Ten Bears on a Bus

download here

Students conducted a shape walk around the room where they found objects of different shapes and drew them in their books. They found some great things to share with one another.

Here is the shape book I made

Here is a little freebie I worked on for my team.

Roll and Records for each month!!

Enjoy:)