Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

It is now, officially, the year of the ox! And we are having a great time celebrating at the Perkins house! We've hung up our Red Decorations, we are wearing red and the kids were thrilled to receive red envelopes (lai see) with a brand new crisp dollar bill inside!

We started the day with crepes folded in the shape of a giant fortune cookie (even though fortune cookies are actually American). I wrote special fortunes for them pointing out their unique talents and abilities. You can probably read them if you click on the picture to see a larger versino. We then did a little math and cursive.

Our next project was chinese writing. We have some fabulous watercolor brush pens from someone's birthday that were perfect. We wrote the chinese character "Fu" for luck, on, you guessed it, red paper! The kids decorated a bit and I laminated them. We'll use them for placemats at lunch, then hang them up as decorations. The chinese always place a 'Fu' decoration over their door, upside down. That way all the luck will dump out into their home!

We decided to make our dragon the kind where the kids hide underneath the body, so we'll be practicing our Dragon Dance this afternoon. It's been so fun and the kids love experiencing the different culture. Their favorite, beside the lai see, is the tray of eight different fruit candies. I just bought a bag of fruit slices, so we only have four different flavors, but it is great incentive for the kids to follow directins today!