Happy Belated Lunar New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy Year of the Monkey! We are celebrating in room 20 with paper lanterns, dragons, Chinese brush art and some treats. Last Monday we had a visit from our Cultural Liason Officer, Ming Wang. She told us about the holiday and showed us a slide show of its history. Still to come are pomelo tasting and chicken dumplings. Of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, the children in this class are born either in the year of the rabbit or of the tiger. Children born before Feb. 3 are tigers! 

Here are some dragons. The dragon symbolizes the coming spring. Unlike Western dragons they are bringers of water and rains and good crops. We are learning that in the winter they live in the bottom of each river and lake and wake up in the spring. 



Here is a sample of a Chinese New Year card that people would send to each other. You can see the lanterns, the fireworks and the lucky red colour everywhere. The children are wearing the new clothes they receive as part of the celebrations. They might also have had a haircut!

These are dumplings which would be part of the big family dinner that everyone would eat together. They come in many shapes. These look a little like purses full of money. One of the wishes for the new year is prosperity. We will try steamed dumplings soon.

 Here is a lion costume. On Lunar New Year the lion gets lettuce and red envelopes from local businesses and brings them prosperity. We are having a little lion dance here, to bring luck to our school. We will also have lots of noise- makers to scare away any bad luck.

Here is another great Chinese dragon, this one on the top of  a beautiful building. Happy New Year!

Library Visits

Our library day is Tuesday. The children will be carrying their books home in their note totes, if they fit. Please send the books in by Monday so the children can return them and take out a new book. There is a library basket in the classroom, so the books can come in another day if you wish.

Sorry about the mix up!

I accidentally left the class numbers at last year's size of 31. My apologies for the confusion!!

A HUGE thank you!

Winter Carnival Volunteers

Thank you to all the volunteers for today's Kinderlude. Thank you for helping our team, the Snowy Owlets. It was a fun time and six activities in an hour and then hot chocolate and cookies was the perfect plan for our little birds. We loved coming in to the snack you prepared and we loved having you cheer for us!

HOW many children??

In case you needed to know how many Valentines to make, there are 31 children in the class, and of course, one charming teacher and two lovely ECEs. Plus there's Mme Peattie, our fabulous French teacher and Miss Christina who covers our class while I have prep time. Hope no one has to go back to the store for more supplies!

Date for Cards and Celebrating Valentine's Day

Date for Cards and Celebrating Valentine's Day

One of the parents asked which day to send in the Valentine cards, since there's a PA day and the 14th is on the weekend. Please send them on Thursday, Feb 11th.  Thursday is the best day. Thank  you for making it an exciting and special time.  

Valentines cards

Valentines cards

This is the night to get ready for Valentine's day. How to address the valentine cards? We ask that the children just put From and not To as it makes delivering the 500 plus valentines much less of a chore. The children can just put to my friend, or leave that part blank, and put from and their name, eg. From Gregory. They will each have a turn to put their valentines in all their big Valentines envelopes, but we will not have to spend hours helping them read them all and finding all the names that match. We can do some other activities to learn to read and write their friend's names, but it's much better to keep their cards simple. Thank you for your help to make this a fun day of friendship!