I'm Hosting My First Linky Party! Lunar New Year Ideas (+ Freebies!)

February is such a busy month for all elementary teachers and it's coming up! Just thinking about it makes me tired...all the holidays in this month (Groundhog Day, 100th day, Valentine's Day, President's Day, Lunar New Year) and all the assessing (DIBELS and district math benchmark). For such a short month, we have SO MANY things to get done. Good luck to all the teachers out there who are busy preparing for this crazy month!

But I have news! Lately, I've been joining a couple of linky parties that I've found while catching up on blog reading (so many to read!) and have found a couple of the weekly or monthly ones that I like. I recently saw a linky party (can't remember where I found it) for February holidays but it didn't include Lunar New Year! So I thought, hm, why not start a linky party for that! And here it is! (My first time hosting!)

I'll have to admit, Lunar New Year, or as many people call it, Chinese New Year, is probably one of my favorite lessons to teach. The reason? Well, I'm Chinese so it's the time when I can share my language and culture with my classroom. I am lucky that my school also celebrates this holiday by having a school-wide Lunar New Year parade. Many of the classrooms (including mine) have a luncheon before the parade and the students get to try a variety of Asian foods like potstickers, fried rice, cha shu, etc. I haven't exactly planned everything for Lunar New Year as the day of our parade is still a couple weeks away on February 22nd (Lunar New Year's is actually on February 9th, but it's a two week celebration), but I did want to share some of the things I did last year and plan to do again this year. I'm sure you will hear more about my Lunar New Year plans as we get closer to the actual date! :)

We're all about songs in first grade, so of course I have to introduce to the kids one of the traditional songs you will here during Chinese New Year!

I also went ahead and typed up the lyrics to the first verse and chorus using simplified and traditional Chinese characters along with the romanization and English translation. My first graders last year had a blast with the song and video and they begged me to play it over and over again. I swear, I played the video at least 10 times that day. By the end of the day, they were definitely able to sing the chorus!

Click on the image above to get your own copy!

I also did a fun (and challenging for some) chopstick math activity. I bought some small pieces of candies that I thought would be somewhat easy to pick up with chopsticks like mini marshmallows, gummy bears, and licorice bits. The kids were then given a set amount of time and had to use chopsticks to pick up as many items as they could and transfer them from the cup to their paper towel. It was definitely an interesting thing to watch since all the kids had different levels of exposure to chopsticks so some came up with some very creative ways to pick things up. Once they were done, they had to complete the worksheet below before they were allowed to eat the stuff the picked up. The kids had a blast!

Click on the image above to get your own copy!

That's all for now! Check back for more ideas for Lunar New Years as I come up with crafts and other lessons to do. Please link up if you have ideas to share too! Let's also try to follow the rule of three: visit and comment on the two links before yours and come back later to visit and comment the link after yours. Link away! Make sure to mention the linky party on your blog so that others can join too! Thanks! :)