We do love our Chinese New Year celebrations. All thanks to some of the family we chose… specifically the den Otters! So even here in Minnesota we do our best to hold onto the new traditions we added to our family while in Alberta. One of these is to spend a month on China, Chinese New Year and Chinese characters. This year we chose to do another poster… and of course with that comes a boatload of resources!

Books!

• Celebrating Chinese New Year by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith
• Chinese New Year by Alice K. Flanagan
• Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations Chinese New Year by Ann Heinrichs
• Sam and the Lucky Money by Karen Chinn
• Children Just Like Me Celebrations by Anabel Kindersley
• I Wonder Why Countries Fly Flags by Philip Steele
• Kai-Lan’s Great Trip to China by Mickie Matheis
• Pandas by Donna K. Grosvenor
• Chinese New Year by Lola M. Schaefer
• Max Celebrates Chinese New Year by Adria F. Klein
• A Gift by Yong Chen
• The Runaway Wok by Ying Chen Compestine
• Chinese New Year by Fay Robinson
• Asian Holidays by Faith Winchester
• National Geographic Kids March 2014 issue (special focus on twin baby pandas)
• Celebrate Chinese New Year by Carolyn Otto
• Happy Chinese New Year, Kai-Lan! by Lauryn Silverhardt

Videos!

• Celebrate With Kai-Lan! HERE
• Ching’s Chinese New Year HERE

Our general helpful links!

• Activity Village is the place to go for printables! First Chinese New Year itself list HERE.
• The Horse of the Zodiac specifically HERE.
• China specific HERE.
• And of course the horse as an animal HERE.

Chinese Flag!

• Gotta cover the flag right? You can find out printable HERE thanks to Rainbowkids.com.
• If you want to find out some history on the flag check out this link HERE thanks to the site A China Family Adventure.

Dragon Dance!

• GMA News Online’s image for 2014 HERE. What a gorgeous looking dragon!
• And then there was the video we watched. I do so love watching the dances. This one was done in Hong Kong in 2013. The dancers are AMAZING and well worth a watch. Thanks to HongKongMap on youTube.

Chinese Music/Instruments! We did not cover a ton on the music. More of a surprise addition when I came across a neat picture of what is commonly called a guitar. So I grabbed a couple website, some music and an image to colour.

• The YueQin on Confucius Institute Online HERE
• Top 10 Chinese Instruments on China Whisper HERE. This girl was amazing. Thanks to NoodlesFaced on youTube. This is XiaoMu Ming.

• Our second video was of some traditional Chinese music entitled Shepherdess’ Song. Thanks to MadePossible on youTube. 

• Our original printable that started this train of interest is found on Rainbowkids.com HERE. They have a great list of resources on their site HERE. It is an adoption site with some great printables for kids. 

The horse itself!

• Animal Facts HERE thanks to Science Kids.
• More facts and breed information on Ducksters HERE.
• A great video of wild horses thanks to National Geographic.

• Zander wanted to know all about the world’s tallest horse so I had to help him out and check into that fact. HERE Guinness World Records site.
• A great list of horse related crafts thanks to Activity Village HERE.

Check out some Zodiac predictions for 2014 HERE. (Huffpost Living Canada)

Links for the three places of interest covered by Ken and the kids:

• Terracotta army thanks to Ducksters HERE
• Great Wall of China thanks to Science Kids HERE
• Shanghai Tower thanks to Wiki HERE
• 

December 31- January 5

How to end a rather interesting and unusual year… (but since when has the Reinsch-Johnson family experienced a USUAL year???) Well we enjoyed some print outs from Activity Village for the 2014 New Year. I love their pages… they have number searches, colouring pages… it is just the place to go for our print out needs lately. 

Education.com (link on right) has also been helpful, though without paying I am now limited to 10 pages per month.

We did up our last Wild Kratts page of the year too. Who can resist Seahorses?? Seriously cool little fish that have an amazing resemblance to horses. We may just have to do a whole on lapbook on them one of these days! 

Both of our girls had their hair in plaits. 

Our last meal of the year? White Castle! Definitely not something we would have in Alberta. I do love their chicken rings. Not so much their sliders.

The kids did not stay up until midnight but we adults did. It was calm and alcohol free for yours truly. Maybe next year we will attempt company? But really, being with Ken is all I need. 

Miss Echo figured that a new year meant a pretty dress. I have to agree… she does do fancy on a regular day with flair. 

That evening we had Chinese from the family’s favourite place The Rose Garden. Fortunes on the first day of 2014!

I was further convinced to extend our vacation from schooling. BUT the boys did do some fancy math and reading while playing Sorry. Which really meant they were only mildly sorry as they trounced each other royally. No fist fights yet!

Miss Trinity actually WANTED to do schoolwork on the second day of the year. Dot-to-Dots are a great way to practice our counting and this book she got last year from friends here in Minnesota has ones up to 50! 

On the third day of 2014 Miss Echo modeled a Christmas outfit as she showed her dollies her cooking skills. 

And with that we wrapped up our week and moved into the weekend… the first of the year. Which is ALSO the first of the month… so.. HOME DEPOT. This time to make a calendar. We are seriously in love with this free program. Apparently it is also running in Canada! 

We rounded off the weekend with a look at our microscope. A bit of science to end our holiday… and ease into schooling once again! I don’t know about the kids, but I am ready! I love the organization. 

So our year has started well. I have not come up with any resolutions BUT I have decided to continue with my happy thoughts jar. I have a little pile of happiness already but no jar to put them in yet. 

December 2-4

Time to start Advent in earnest with the first Monday of the month. But first we had to finish off our Thankful poster. It is now full of things we are thankful for. One item for every day in November leading up to and including Thanksgiving Day. It will now make its home on a wall in the boys’ room.

I am so glad I put our Perler bead Advent calendar where I could find it this year! We have had this one for years and years and the kids just love taking the different shapes and putting them on the board each night. THEY remind ME! For those keeping track, this is Advent calendar #2!

We have jumped into our Christmas/Advent themed worksheets with both feet. I am getting MOST of these from our favourite crafting and print out site – Activity Village. Their link is on right.

It also gives me a chance to introduce our THIRD Advent calendar – a paperchain we tear the rings off each night. I printed off the Activity Village version that had the numbers and lines to trim on ready to go but you could just cut the papers.

We hit midweek with weather that allowed the boys outside to play in the snow. It is funny. Alberta has been hit hard by cold and snow… us way less so!

Of course we had to enjoy a Wild Kratts that covered an animal we had not yet made a mini poster for!

Burrowing Owls

BUT the big excitement stemmed from our assembly of our Thanksgiving unit into a lovely duotang. There was so much to enjoy revisiting and a lovely stack of finished work to compliment each other over. You can find our resources HERE.

Completion in wake of beginning Advent… the best of both worlds!

Remember to check Art for Kids for thematic how tos on drawing and more… link on right.