Chinese New Year Celebrations

February 1st through the 15th was the official Chinese New Year celebration and although we don't make a big deal about it here at home, because we only think of Olivia as an American, her class happened to be studying China and emperors and palaces. Olivia's teacher asked me if I had any items from China that I could share so I ended up bringing in a whole table full of things and had to give a couple small talks to Olivia's class and to some of the older kids also. It was fun to dig out these souvenirs and treasures that I had kind of forgotten about.




Olivia's teacher pursued this more and found interesting facts on the Internet and discovered the current new year celebrations and decided it would be fun to incorporate that into the classroom and teaching. So, she made lanterns with the class one day and I made parade dragons with them another day. On Wednesday, which is also the day the playgroup meets, we joined the Kindergarten, First Grade and the playgroup and had a huge Chinese New Year parade in the gym. Everyone had something to carry and the kids thought it was very exciting and had a great time.




Olivia knows we came to China to get her when she was a baby but has not pursued too many more facts or questions about any details yet. She is just a happy American kid and loves to have parties/celebrations/parades, etc. no matter what the occasion is.