This past Tuesday was a really high-energy day with both groups.
The middle school class was really excited to make paper lanterns and learn traditional Chinese characters to decorate them. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of them because I spent the class demonstrating the characters for “Happy New Year” and “Pig” to the students.
Out of a class of about 20 students, a handful said that they celebrate Chinese New Year with their families. They were excited to tell the rest of the class why we’re making the character for “pig” (2019 is the year of the pig!). We left them with handouts to pass around to keep practicing their characters and headed down to the cafeteria to meet our 2nd and 3rd grade class.
We took a different approach with the 2nd and 3rd grade class; the previous week, they had such a good time with their cutout pandas that we decided to do something similar. J and I found a 3D Pig craft and prepped the pieces beforehand:
As we passed them out, I initiated a conversation about Chinese New Year. More students in this class than the last one celebrated the holiday, and told us a little about what their families do. As we helped the kids with the 3D noses, we talked about the Year of The Pig and how it represents wealth and prosperity. Overall, the kids really enjoyed the project and they were all excited to take it home and show their families.
