Next week: Treehouse celebrate Chinese New Year!
February 8th to 22nd is Chinese New Year... come & explore with Treehouse!
2016 - the year of the Monkey!
Chinese New Year is the most important of the Chinese holidays, and is a time of feasting with the family, celebration, fireworks and gift-giving. It is a 15-day holiday, beginning on the first day of a new moon and ending with the full moon on the day of the Lantern Festival.
The Chinese calendar is based on the lunar year, so the date of Chinese New Year changes every year. The Chinese calendar follows a 12-year pattern with each year named after an animal. There are various stories which explain this. The simplest is that Buddha (or the Jade Emperor) invited all of the animals to join him for a New Year celebration, but only 12 animals turned up. To reward the animals that did come, Buddha named a year after each of them in the order that they arrived, starting with the Rat, followed by the Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat (or Sheep), Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. Depending on the year you are born, you are believed to have the various character traits of that year's animal.
At Tree house this week to celebrate Chinese new year we will be tantalising our taste buds with prawn crackers and fortune cookies, creating a dragon using a box plenty of paint and a generous sprinkling of glitter building the children’s creative and team building skills, once completed we will use our Chinese dragon head to dance around the setting to traditional Chinese music and drums giving the children an opportunity to explore new music and rhythms.
Our home corner will be decorated and stocked with chopsticks, bowls, Chinese menus and tasty wool noodles. Building on the children’s role-play experiences and introducing text other than that in a book. We will have red spaghetti, rice and play-doh for the children to practise their chopstick skills and build on their fine motor skills.
We have gold coins for counting and lucky red envelopes at Chinese New Year parents, family and friends give money to children in red envelopes. The red colour symbolises good luck, and the amount of money can be anything from a small coin to a larger amount. Lucky money envelopes are also known as Red Packets or Red Envelope.
In the cosy corner and book nook we have a selection of books that celebrate the Chinese New Year. You can help your child maximise their enjoyment and development potential by encouraging them to explore the new activities at Treehouse – and discuss what they have experienced and enjoyed most at the end of the day.
Kung Hei Fat Choy!
