Today we video conferenced with the Old Jail Art Centre in Texas to learn about Lunar New Year. Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year begins when there is a new moon in the sky. This means that it starts on a different day every year. This year Chinese New Year began on Thursday February 19th, 2015. Here is what we learned:
1. We watched a story about Chinese New Year called The Great Race. It is a story about how the Chinese Zodiac signs were made.
2. We learned that there are 12 animals on the Chinese New Year calendar. In the story the cat wasn’t chosen as an animal for the calendar because it was tricked by the rat. This means the cat didn’t finish the race in time to win a spot on the Chinese New Year calendar. The cat was mad.
3. In the story we learned a lot about how Chinese people celebrate Chinese New Year. In China red is a lucky colour and means happiness.
4. Kids are given “lucky money” in red and gold envelopes.
5. Dragon dancers dance in the streets.
6. People buy new clothes and clean their homes. They do this to say goodbye to the old year and start fresh.
7. People decorate their homes with flowers, candy, good luck poems, and is seems like everything is red.
8. During the holiday families and friends give each other gifts like fruits. These fruits are good luck.
9. We also learned about the Chinese Zodiac. All of us were born 2007 and 2008. 2007 is year of the boar. If you were born in that year it means you are honourable and brave. Mrs. Cassell was born in 1976 (that is a long time ago :). She was born in the year of the dragon. That means she is proud and full of energy. Here you can see what year you were born on the Chinese calendar!
This year is the year of the goat or sheep. If you were born in the year of the sheep you are very wise and ask good questions. You may also be artistic.
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0. During our video conference we got to see a Chinese statue of a sheep that was hundreds of years old. We could tell it was old because there were some faint cracks on the sheep.
Thank you Old Jail Art Centre. We really enjoyed learning about Lunar New Year!
11. The Old Jail art centre taught us how to make a 3D sheep using paper, clothespins, cotton balls, glue, and markers. Here are some pictures of us making our sheep.
Leigh Cassell Consulting 