In the weeks leading up to their visit, I hit up the local Chinese grocery store to find some dumpling wrappers. Wow, that was fun! The place was filled with lots of the snacks and foods that I was accustom to seeing in a grocery store.
As I was planning, Jade wanted in on the action and suggested we play pin the head on the dragon. She promptly created a dragon body and head for the game. Then on the day of our party, the girls drew and colored more dragon bodies and heads while the boys were napping.
We kept crafting as we made a dragon out of a diaper box and construction paper.
When the boys woke up, we started out by reading a couple children’s books about Chinese New Year. They are really good for explaining the CNY traditions. At many parties we attended during Chinese festivals, Chinese riddles were posted for people to guess and win prizes. We took turns trying to figure out simple children’s riddles. Then we pulled out our CNY decorations and let the kids play with our string puppets. Soon after that, it was time to prepare dinner. I showed the kids how to fold dumplings, then let them give it a try. It was pretty cute how some of them turned out; I wish I took pictures of them, but I was elbow deep in raw pork.
It was fun to introduce them to Chinese food even if the kids didn’t like it very much. Kristen and Patrick seemed to enjoy it though, especially their first taste of dumplings! Jade was pretty happy to down a plate full of dumplings again; she tells me they are her favorite food.
We also let everybody try out chopsticks. Jade is getting pretty good with them. These series of photos are so cute as you can see the girls trying to get some food in their mouths!
After dinner we played pin the head on the dragon and had our dragon parade.
Everybody got a part: we used a lantern for the dragon’s fireball and the kids’ toy instruments for the drums. Then they took turns switching around.
Here is a short taste of the kids’ dragon parade.
We ended our party by handing out hong baos (red envelopes), of course! They were all pretty excited to receive their chocolate coins.
On the actual day of Chinese New Year, Jade got all dressed up for school.
In fact, so did I! Jade’s kindergarten class is “traveling” to different countries around the world throughout the school year. They asked parents to sign up to come in and talk about some of the countries. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to share about China. I shared a slideshow of photos and videos from China and Chinese culture, as well as CNY traditions. We ended the presentation with Jade handing out rice crackers and hong baos to her classmates. I had an absolute blast visiting Jade’s class. When Jade told me she wanted me to stay and be her teacher all the time, it was icing on the cake.
Our CNY at home that night was pretty low key as we simply had another Chinese-themed dinner. Cody paid me the best compliment when he told me how immaculately my dumplings were folded! I’m glad I learned something over there.
2 comments:
Oh I miss your cute family! Jade is such an artist, and she better not lose her chop stick skills. Those lucky kids that had you visit their class and hear about CNY! I'd hate to be one of the moms that had to follow you. Send me the titles of the books that explain CNY well. I must add them to my list for the grandchildren.
Oh my gosh you are the best mom in the world! I could really go for one of those dumplings!
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