Chuc Mung Nam Moi

Xin nian kuai le! Gong xi fa chai! Chuc mung nam moi! Happy Lunar New Year!

Sunday was a very special day for many people around the world! Just like how people in the world celebrated the new year on January 1st, people also celebrate the new year on January 22! Although the dates maybe different, we learned from our “special guest” that people spend their special days with their families eating yummy food! Before we welcomed our guest to Petals Class, we enjoyed playing with Legos and the kitchen toys. We also worked with our teachers to finish up our bunny crafts. We packed away our things much earlier than usual so we could have our snacks earlier.

After our snacks we had our library time as we waited for our special guest. A short while later, M’s mom came in and sat down with us in the circle! We sang our good morning song and introduced ourselves to M’s Mom. We asked her what her name was and she told us, “My name is D!”, “Good morning D!” we greeted her. D started by reading a story to us, “Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas” by Natasha Yim. The book was very similar to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, a book that Sayaka read to us. We remembered we called Goldilocks very naughty for all the trouble she caused and then ended up just running away. In this book Goldy Luck was very much like Goldilocks as she went to the Three Panda’s House and ate their food, broke the baby’s chair, and slept in their bed. When the Panda’s came home Goldy Luck got scared and ran home. However, Goldy Luck started to think about how the baby Panda felt not having his food, chair, and bed. Goldy Luck quickly ran back to The Panda’s House and apologized, she even helped clean the mess she made. Together, Goldy Luck and the Panda’s made some delicious Lunar New Year food to eat together! What a lovely ending!

D: The Lunar New Year is when we get together with our families and eat lots of yummy food! We also give out little red coin bags and say, “Chuc mung nam moi”, which means Happy New Year in Vietnamese.

M: I’m going to you give you all one (coin bag)!

D: Before we give the coin bags were going to make a special New Year’s lantern you can take home!

We went to the craft table and D handed us a colored paper with little cuts in it, some stamp markers, and stickers. We used the markers and stickers to decorate our lantern then D stapled the two ends together and added a handle. We were very impressed with how nice the lanterns looked! After everyone finished their craft, M handed a small red pouch to each of us. M told us,
“There’s a balloon and a lollipop inside!”, as excited as were to open them our teachers didn’t want us to lose anything so we quickly put our gifts into our bags. We thanked D for the wonderful Lunar New Year party!

The weather outside wasn’t looking so great so we decided to stay indoors and have Gym and Music class! We warmed our bodies up with some exercises then played a music game called, “Highway  #1). In the game we drove around the world and visited some people in countries and they would tell us what action we needed to do. Here’s where we went and what we said:

(America) G: spin and jump 

(Japan) K: Touch toe and 

(Korea) J: Clap and spin

(Korea) L: Jump 

(America) C: scoop like a excavator 

(Japan) E: Clap and spin 

(Japan) K: Spin and Jump

(China) R: Jump and spin and clap 

(Vietnam) M: Scoop and jump 

(Latvia) E: Pick your foot up high and high!

(Japan) S: Jump and jump!

(America) T: Crawl and jump

(Japan) P: Skip, skip, skip 

We gathered in front of the world map and sang our Seven Continents Song. Nimo showed us the flags he printed on Friday.

Nimo: Who knows this flag? *China*

T: Chinese

R: My daddy speak Chinese and Japanese.

Nimo: Who’s mommy is from China?

E: My mommy!

C: My daddy and mommy and brother go to Chinese.

Nimo: To China?

C: No Chinese. 

G: Me mommy and me go to America for my birthday. 

T: My mommy lives in South America 

Nimo: This is the flag for Argentina, do you remember who is from Argentina?

T: my mommy from Argentina Tokyo.

Nimo: R… Ra…

Petals: R!

This country *Latvia Flag*

R: South America 

Nimo: Latvia is the country where E’s daddy come from.

E: Daddy!

Who is from Korea?

K: K!

Nimo: K?

J: K!

L: Me!

Nimo: M do you know where Australia is?

M: Yup! It’s here!

Nimo: Where is this flag? *USA*

G: America, me and T are from America.

Nimo: Which flag is this? *Japan*

E: Japan! I live in Japan.

R: I live in Tokyo.

S: Me too.

Nimo: Who was born in this country? *UK flag*

K: Me.

We stuck the flags on our world map and will stick our faces on the countries we are from at another day!

What a fantastic start to a fantastic week! Have a great evening everyone and we will see you again tomorrow for another special day!

Love,

Petals