Chinese New Year: the Year of the Rabbit - 新年快乐

Kung-Hsi Fa-Ts’Ai!

"The Year of the Rabbit"

2/3/11 - 1/22/12

Happy Chinese New Year to all my friends! This is the first year we have partaken in a celebration of this festive holiday and boy have we been missing out...Some of the fun activities we did in preparation of today have been to read the colorful fairytale by author Grace Lin entitled, "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon".

This book was suggested to me by my friend Carrie of The Parenting Passageway when I was planning our Grade 2 year. She sang its praises and tossed the idea around of doing a whole block on it. One of the elements of our school is to read a special novel each month, carefully chosen to reflect the season, holiday or celebration. I decided to place this book in our January block so we would have a whole month to savor it before celebrating our first Chinese New Year. Well, lo and behold, the book was so fabulous and such a quick read that we ended up devouring it instead and changed gears and ended up doing a whole block on it as a vehicle, instead of more fables! Carrie has more wonderful book suggestions on her blog. For Grade 2, a link to some gems she recommends can be found here.

In continuation of our Chinese appreciation studies, since we flew through Grace Lin's wonderful book, we followed up with a familiar tale that now ties into our math block in February. It's by Helena Clare Pittman and is entitled, "A Grain of Rice". It explores the power of multiplication and is a wonderful read aloud for living math studies.

As an aside, if you are focusing on India, the talented author Demi has also penned a similar story set in India that we have also read called, "One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale". The illustrations in this book (as in all of Demi's books) are simply to die for!

Demi also has a book on celebrating Chinese New Year called, "Happy, Happy Chinese New Year!"

In preparation for today, the girls and I found some crafts that we altered a bit to fit our needs. We had a lot of fun creating Chinese firecracker decorations out of construction paper, glue, glitter, and yarn.

1. First fold red construction paper into fourths and cut.

This print out came with the craft so we used these letters to model our letters.

2. With glue, draw your letter(s) or design.

3. Take gold glitter and sprinkle it on the glue, lifting and sifting the paper to ensure the glue is entirely covered with glitter.

4. After it dries, you can wrap one end to the other so it forms a tube and glue it together. Let dry.

5. Cut strips of gold yarn and tape or glue to the inside of the firecracker and hang around the house!

Another fun craft is making lanterns. The tutorial, along with other fun tutorials (including felt fortune cookies, dragons, felt dumplings, etc) can be found for these here.

We bought some fun chopsticks and made a steamed rice meal.

The girls woke to find these little rice candies on their plates to enjoy this afternoon. And we will be attempting to make our own fortune cookies using the recipe found here.

We are also members of the Gene Autry Museum in Griffith Park and they have a permanent exhibit on the Chinese immigrants who came to build the railroads out west. The exhibit includes an interactive kitchen, a Chinese restaurant, and other hands on exploration for children. Traditional Chinese clothing can be put on the children as they play and learn about this beautiful culture.

The Year of the Rabbit is one to focus mainly on the home, on family, and on the relationships with women and our children. I like that focus and it will serve as wonderful reminder of what is really important in our lives - our children and being good to each other. The rabbit is a lucky sign and a symbol of the moon. As we embark on this new year, let us be grateful for all of our blessings. I know I am so grateful for all of my online friends. I have been so inspired by so many great blogs and teachers out there and extend a big giant cyber hug to you all!

新年快乐

LA Block: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

"Where the Mountain Meets the Moon"

by Grace Lin

Carrie from The Parenting Passageway tipped me off to this great book this summer. As usual, she was right. It's a wonderful mix of fairy tales wrapped into a lovely cultural story about a young poor girl in China who wants to change her family's fortune. After hearing inspiring stories told by her Ba (father), she follows her heart on a magical journey complete with talking goldfish and a lovable dragon on her way to find The Old Man of the Moon who will hopefully tell her how to help save her family from their difficult reality.

The chapters are short, but don't kid yourself, your children will not want you to put this book down - lol! We are more than half way through it and I ended up changing gears and have been planning our whole Jan block around this book.

I am drawing a picture from the book twice a week that the girls will then copy into their MLB's. They have been helping me write sentences/summaries that they are placing in their book, on the page next to their drawing. Above the drawing, is also a very short sentence in which the nouns are identified in blue (and the verbs will be identified in red starting this week as we are covering a part of speech each week). Here is an example:

.

We are writing down words to keep on a large piece of paper that pertain to the book that they are learning. These words are helping them to form sentences of their summaries and are helping reading, writing, and spelling. They are also learning the beginnings of punctuation.

Along with beeswax modeling, a traditional Chinese meal, and a little lesson on the Chinese New Year (Feb 3rd this year), we are enjoying painting.

Elena is the type of child who is more comfortable following a model. When she feels satisfied, she then takes little steps to branch out to make something her own.

Charley, on the other hand, has always marched to the beat of her own drum. Even though we've discussed why we lay down the background first and then remove paint to add an element, she was very insistent on trying it this way - putting the dragon down and then painting around it. It was a good way for her to see that it does not layer the picture well, though I admit, it does have a pretty neat effect. It is also more challenging if the paint runs a bit, as wet on wet tends to do. Her picture took a lot longer than the others.

Elena's is listed below...

Setting them out to dry...

The girls are happily preparing to make their First Reconciliation at the end of this month, so we've been heavy into religious education, which fits beautifully in with the studies of the Saints this year. Here Charley is with our long term foster pup, Stanley (10 years old). He's helping her prepare :) Stanley had a dental whereby he lost most of his teeth, so his little tongue hangs out to the side permanently. Once in a while he pulls it all the way in his mouth, but we think it just adds to his charm! He doesn't see well, but he is a total sweetheart. I have fallen really hard for this little senior. We've had him a month now, but he's been in the rescue since August and no interest in him yet (good for me, right?!?! :D)

Another part of the 2nd grade curriculum is learning the basic parts of speech. We have started learning about nouns and verbs. The first week, we tackled nouns. I found some fun books to enhance our understanding. Brian P. Cleary has written some simple books which rhyme and add to the fun. The other selection of books are more advanced, so I cover the first few pages, but then when it goes off on specifics that we are not yet ready for (branching off into more detail than we are ready for at this moment "Imperative", "tenses", "helping verbs") then I am just stopping there. These books (by Ruth Heller) will be great as we progress, but I am finding the Cleary books to be more on our current level.

We always allow lots of time for freeplay and the Ostheimers are still favorites!

This week's saint was St. Antony of Egypt. His feast day was on January 17th, the day after the girls daddy (who is also an Anthony) had a very special b-day!

For this St. Antony, I gleaned inspiration from "Stories of the Saints", as well as the Catholic teachings found online. EWTN has more extensive explanations, like St. Antony of Egypt's found here. Not sure how much I like this book yet, but we'll see over time. We are doing St. Agnes tomorrow for her feast day and a lot of liberties have been taken in the "Stories of the Saints" book. My question is - how true do we need to make them to be historically accurate, especially as a Roman Catholic who wants to respect that history of the church - versus making the story speak to the child with fantastical liberties, ya know? I am trying my very best to do both so I'm finding that pulling some elements from the prewritten stories, coupled with the accounts from the church is probably the best way to tailor it to our little ones.

It was Daddy's birthday on Sunday...

Charley is holding little Ralph - our one week foster

as we help out the head of our rescue.

And finally - some delicious homemade granola!

Charley loves her granola so I decided it's about time I make my own organic granola. I asked the awesome mamas at the Green Tara Mama Yahoo Group and got several great recipes to try. This one came in first and so we gave it a whirl - very good (and easy)!

This recipe came from Leslie K. from the Green Tara Mama Yahoo Group:

Slow Cooker granola (A friend sent this recipe to me, she said it came from "Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker" by Robin Robertson).

5 cups oats
1 cup sliced almonds
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup sesame seeds
2/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup canola
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Mix all of the ingredients in a crockpot. Do NOT cover with the lid. Cook for 1.5 hours on high, then turn to low and cook for 2 more hours. Stir occasionally. Spread on cookie sheets to cool and dry until crispy. Yields about 8 cups.

Christmas Heritage Traditions

Polish for "Merry Christmas"

This is a beautiful Polish doll brought back to me from Poland by my beloved grandparents, now both deceased. This doll, whom I named Karisha (Karen) is ever more precious to me now.

I am very fortunate to have been part of a family who is very grounded in tradition - the Polish side from me and now the Italian side from my husband. There are many aspects to how my Polish family celebrates the holidays and I'd like to share a little bit of how we celebrate ours across the miles...


There is a lovely children's book about how the Polish people celebrate Christmas called, "Marta and the Manger Straw".


It centers around the Polish tradition of taking a piece of straw from the church manger to keep with you which will bring *riches* throughout the new year. The riches are more than monetary, however. This story is about little Marta, who is very poor. She is given a piece of the manger straw and ends up giving pieces of it away to others who are more needy than she, until she has nothing left. Marta learns how the power of love and altruism comes back tenfold. It's a lovely lesson in giving.


Another custom is to place straw underneath the table cloth, symbolizing the humble beginnings of the Christ child. Straw is extremely symbolic to this culture and we decided to start a tradition of making our own straw star ornaments this year in honor of our Polish heritage.


Paper, Scissors, Stone sells Swedish straw which I had purchased earlier this year. The girls are, like most Americans, a mix of many cultures, including some Swedish, so it's all good :)


I remembered reading a nice tutorial on Syrendell last year about how they made straw garland. It can be found here.

So while the dogs were sleeping, the straw was soaking...


Farley (age 12.75)


Stanely (our current foster - age 10)


And the furbabies - Koda (9 months) & Jack (4.5 or so?)


This is a wonderful book, though I have since seen their crafts in other Christmas crafting books, including "Christmas in the Family". Both are wonderful, though the latter has more than just crafts.


Filling Babci's old pot that I brought back...


The girls put the pieces of straw in to soak...


Then, we cut them in half at an angle so that they would be pointed.

I had also attempted to iron them, but they would not flatten properly (might be the type of straw they are) so we decided to enjoy them as is.


We cut a piece of thread and placed it horizontally on the table.
We then placed the pieces of straw in the desired design.


After trial and error, I found it easiest with the children for me to hold the design with my finger and allow them to weave the thread up and over one, down and under the next, up and over, down and under, etc. Every once in a while, we'd knot it off and then alternate which pieces were up and over & which ones were down and under so that they were all secured.


And voila! Elena finished her 6 pointed star!


Karisha holds one of my stars!

Charley's turn...

Taaaa daaaaahhh!

They somehow make our tree complete!

Marta and the Manger Straw has a free unit study that can go along with the book, though I honestly wasn't too impressed, but I'm sure it can be embellished by all you wonderful homeschool mama's out there!

Homeschool Share's free unit study on this book can be found here.

Some other Polish traditions - this year we bought a Charlie Brown type silver tree. Every year for the past 60-70 years, Granny's (Babci's) silver tree was put up. See below for a picture of the real silver tree the last year it was put up when Babci was still alive. It is still being put up, but I wanted to have my own little one to remind me of my dear Granny Goose!

My silver tree...

Babci's silver tree (not finished decorating it)

More traditions...sauerkraut soup and sauerkraut pierogies

We are very fortunate to have my great grandmother's pierogie recipes, along with my great aunt dolly's and some yummy variants from Glos Polek - the Polish Women's Alliance out of Chicago, Illinois.

The girls & I make pierogies every year. This year, we made cheese & potato, froze them, and my aunt is flying them into Chicago this holiday for our extended family to enjoy!

We make them the way that great grandma made them...

After preparing the dough, roll out with a rolling pin until they are nice and thin.

Using a glass, you cut out the circular shapes (use a large rim).

Place the stuffing in - the trick is to have a lot of stuffing in a very thin shell. It is actually pretty challenging if you do it like the pros. That was my big criticism of my first batches - too much dough!

Stretch the dough over the filling.

Use the edge of a fork to close the edges. Make sure they are closed tightly or they will open when boiled and all the stuffing comes out (happened to me waaaaayy too many times!)

Finished, it should look like this...

Then place on wax paper and brush melted butter over them so that when you freeze them, they will not stick together. If you are eating immediately, you boil them until they rise to the top and then fry them in a frying pan with butter and enjoy!

This batch is headed to Chicago, along with a bunch of xmas cookies...Mmmmmm...

Lots of great links out there to Polish celebrations, which can turn into a wonderful cultural study for all you homeschoolers out there!

What are your Christmas Heritage Traditions?