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
• 

January 15-22

We are definitely revisiting some old favourites with our Chinese New Year reading. And with each one recognizing facts we already know and gems yet to be learned. One of my favourite aspects of Chinese New Year is the celebration of prosperity, family and all things positive. We can always use a little positive energy right? We slipped in some time to make a get well soon picture for a mom I met online through a multiples group. We figure a fun picture by the children would be an even better pick me up than a simple card! I am so impressed by the lovely heart all these mommies show. Our new books definitely had the boys ready to read read read. And we made ourselves a stable for our Chinese New Year year of the horse. We got our popsicle stick instructions from Activity Village HERE. It was a goup effort. The girls used markers decorate the stick while the boys did the gluing together. This week was the week of sweet Echo pics. She is in the middle of a hat phase and 2013’s Christmas present from myself fits her better this year – a teddybear ear hat. I got the pattern off of CrochetSpot HERE. The next day we had to brush out her hair, dress her up and take a few big girl pictures too. The girls also modeled the aprons I made them for Christmas in front of the kitchen set they got from Aunty Holly, Uncle James and Cousin Jimmie! You can find that pattern HERE. Friday was a total wash with a run to deal with passports. A WHOLE morning eaten up by the rather intense application process at the only office in the state. We had an appointment time thank goodness and the poor girl had a boatload of paperwork to do. Thankfully Ken and I had wandered down memory lane and got all the transcripts that exist for Ken for the entire time he was in public school. You need that proof to show that he was in the US enough for the kids to qualify for dual citizenship. My OCD of keeping lists of our addresses, baptism forms (which are a viable secondary ID here in the US???) and all that fun stuff came in really handy as well as Nana coming along to wrangle the kids. You have to have them there for a visual confirmation of their application and both myself and Ken to agree that they should even have the darn thing in the first place! But what a gateway passports are to getting all the other ID set up like Social Security and sorting our kids out so that they are set to live in either country! Lucky babies!

After all that government related fun the kids kicked back with some gaming. Funny how touch screens are natural to them!! Our weekend was a quiet one. Saturday there was lots of time to play with those new toys… and for Trinity to work on her sticker book. One of those lovely ones where you pick up sticker packs and collect what you need. Of course on Sunday they had Sunday School and an excuse to take ANOTHER picture of them all dressed up. I look forward to spring when going as a whole family and staying for service will be much more reasonable. We did luck out with the Sunday afternoon thaw. It was so nice that the kids were out there without coats, shovels in hand to help clear out the driveway. We are not on the best side of the street for the sun to melt it all away completely. We are loving the idea we found on Facebook of freezing coloured water in balloons to freeze and then burst and display. Nana and the kids have expanded to include freezing coloured water in other containers to add to what they are now calling her ice garden. My favourite is the blue balloon. We started the next week with dinosaurs… potty sticker sheets (still spotty luck on that one)… and well dressed scouts… and boys in the mood to learn how to swim!

On Tuesday we roped Daddy into teaching us about the first of 3 Chinese locations – the Great Wall (which became Trinity’s favourite). I have to admit to some interest myself on that amazing landmark.

With a Lego rendition of a portion of the wall

Of course we continued with other learning leaning to China and all things Chinese New Year. We used Activity Village AND the official Kai-Lan site thanks to Nick Jr. HERE. Even Echo is getting in on the language practice.

We had a short reflection on what we could remember so far about China and Chinese New Year. I do love seeing what sticks in their brains.

And of course more stories.

We rounded off our first half of the week with some lovely dragons all ready to dance thanks to the generosity of Lakeshore. At our last visit to them to craft it up we mentioned we could not make this upcoming week… Ken had his vasectomy scheduled. So the girl gave us the shapes to add to our own paperbags. I had the presence of mind to photocopy this for future use!

Miss Trinity had a proud workbook completion…

And Emanuel lost ANOTHER tooth. So time for a tooth fairy note!

More Chinese Characters…

books…

and creative time…

With the kids covering Terracotta warriors with Daddy! 

I think we are well on our way to enjoying our countdown to our second very special New Year celebration of our year.

February 4-5

So we have Nana and Baba just until the early AM of the 6th so what are we to do but take a run out on Monday and see not only Mall of America and do a little shopping but head out to what we were told was the best Ethiopian restaurant around – Fasika! Bree suggested it, Ted ordered for us and it was… AMAZING!!! I mean seriously AMAZING! I want to go back. We had meat and vegetables and the most amazing tea… you eat with your fingers The company was as fun as the food… you eat only with your fingers and this amazing soft bread. Seriously TRY IT OUT!

lamb and mince

veggies

Ken and I

Anyway BEFORE that was Mall of America and a few stops… Legoland of course, the Sanrio store and I stopped in at Betty Paige to check out the dresses and debate some fashions. I really want another dress… I am torn between one I tried on before and THIS one.

Before that was our first day with Sean… the kids were INSANELY excited… where hanging with Uncle Ted seems to bring cuddling and calm, Uncle Sean is like a whirlwind of excitement which is hilarious because he is a champion NAPPER!

Uncle Ted time

Crazy Sean

Napping Sean

Add Uncle Sean to the post Birthday rush and well… EXCITEMENT… Having BOTH Uncles is insane!

Skylanders for all

Of course we squeezed in some drawing time. This time there were two different instructions used off of Art for Kids – the horse and cupid. The horse, especially, was more difficult than the norm as there were lines to be drawn and then erased.

Gavin’s horse

Zander’s cupid

We made ourselves some lucky goldfish to go on our Chinese New Year poster. The kids are absolutely enthralled with how many things are lucky.

So pretty

With a shopping trip at Legoland I am sure you can imagine what the 5th (also the twins’ birthDATE) brought – a rather simplified schooling schedule. The set that Sean got the boys to share was VERY complicated and did not get completed in the full day of work but WOW did they work together and ENJOY it!

Gavin at work with his assistant Zander

We skipped our dinosaurs but a friend on one of my egroups sent me a great link with cross stitch patterns of dinosaurs you can check out HERE. The last one is perfect for a beginner stitcher. I may have Gavin do that.

Instead Emanuel worked on his Lego gift – a helicopter

We needed to burn off some energy so I sent the kids out to shovel and followed with Echo to enjoy the decent weather. Trinity and Echo tried freezing bubbles outside but it wasn’t cold enough. So instead Gavin conscripted Echo to help finish off the walk… gotta start them young!

Don’t ask where Zander’s hat is… ugh

Catch the bubble!

See this is how you do it little sister

I love the Hello Kitty Sean picked out for Echo, and so does she! The only purple one in the store that was ALMOST as big as her!

In love

This was the last evening for Nana and Baba before their 7 weeks in Mexico! Snorkeling is on the list of things to do this trip I am told! So we had take out Chinese from the Rose Garden (total yum, great prices and large portions we never get it from anywhere else).

Post dinner carnage!

Then Ken, Sean, Ted, Christopher and Cory had a gaming evening here at the house. Another on of those things that we enjoy on BOTH sides of the border!

Gaming

So with TWO uncles here, a post birthday present pile to enjoy and some last minute time with Nana and Baba before their trip we spent the last few days more than a little content and the kids in a state of permanent excitement! Oh and we did some school work too…

Hanging out with Uncle Ted