Lunar New Year Try-It Tuesday

This week's Try-It Tuesday event was to create your own dragon out of egg cartons, toilet paper tubes, and yarn. This is the idea I had in my head: http://www.pinkstripeysocks.com/2015/02/recycled-chinese-new-year-dragon-craft.html

 I put a tarp out on the floor, paint, paintbrushes, and let the kids go to town! I had Valentine supplies out as a way to pass the time while the paint was drying. Unfortunately, it took them an hour of my hour and a half program to paint. So I scrambled around to make kids for them to take home to complete their project with the addition of fasteners, straws and the directions. They had a grand time (well until Valentine making. That's when some kids decided computers were cooler.) I would do this craft again, but with way more time planned and activities to do while waiting.

Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day

Normally I don't combine these two holidays, but next week I have my monthly presenter coming, so I decided to whip something together that combined both.

I started with singing "Can't Wait to Celebrate" by Jim Gill.

Then I launched into New Clothes for New Year's Day by Hyan-Ju Bae. I personally really like this story, but the kids at my story time weren't so into it. The girls liked the clothes and talking about it, one boy ran out of the room. Oh well.

He came back in time for the next part, which was a flannel board about how the Chinese zodiac came to be. I adapted a story from Jean Warren's Preschool Express called "Little Mouse's Big Trick." The kids got to put the animals up on the flannel as I read the story and called out the names. Then we talked about which animals we were and whether we felt like we were similar to the characteristics. Most were pretty happy, although one ox worried that it meant she would never be an artist. It helped her to know that I am also an ox, and I'm not a surgeon or a hairstylist. For this part, I was using the descriptions in the book Moonbeams, Dumplings and Dragonboats: A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities and Recipes by Nina Simonds.

Next we read Froggy's First Kiss by Jonathan London, which continued the kiss conversation from last week. After that book we got out the scarves and danced to "Skidamarink", which I sang and one child suggested I not sing again.

Finally, we wrapped up by reading Happy Valentine's Day Mouse! by Laura Joffe Numeroff. I had three kids, so the board book format worked in this situation. We also did one last fingerplay, which I got from the Take Your Child to the Library Day handout  where we put a scarf in our pocket, said the fingerplay and blew the scarf out of our hand as a kiss. This was the best thing I did all day for those kids.

Our craft was from that same handout. We did a heart-y mouse and then I had some pre-printed Valentines from DLTK crafts for them to color.