Did you know that Chinese New Year lasts for 15 days?
During that time special foods are eaten, relatives and close friends are visited, children wear red and gold colored traditional Chinese outfits and receive red envelopes filled with money from married adults.
Having married into a Chinese family, my children participate in these festivities. My husband and I prepare red envelopes filled with $5, $10 and $20 bills to hand out to our unmarried siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews.
I also teach my children New Year greetings. It is customary for a child to give the proper greeting to an adult before receiving a red envelope. The most common greeting is 恭喜發財 gōng xǐ fā cái. (Here it spoken: MDBG Dictionary In the box, to the right of the colorful characters, put your mouse over the right double arrow and click on the audio symbol.)
Childbook.com, (a site I highly recommend and whose resources I use and love!), has a Chinese New Year page with free information, activities and projects for children. Check it out HERE; you might learn something new!
I have used a book in my Chinese classroom to give my students a context for learning about Chinese holidays. It has stories, activities and recipes for the major Chinese holidays. I use it for junior high kids, but I think it’s good K-12 if you tweak the activities. If you need a handy resource for teaching or learning about Chinese culture, I recommend Moonbeams, Dumplings and Dragon Boats: A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities & Recipes.
There are plenty of great books out there for kids to learn about Chinese New Year. If you’re homeschooling, you can’t afford to leave it out of your seasonal activities! Here are a few of my recommendations:
I have a page full of resources for you to learn Chinese right HERE.
What kinds of resources do you use to learn or teach Chinese culture? Leave a comment and let us know!
