Quarterly Activity

Feb 27 we went over to one of the nearby retirement homes and sang songs.  We started at our meetinghouse and prepared for our visit.

 First we decorated bags. When the bags were done cookies were placed in them.

Then we made tissue paper flowers with pipe cleaners.

We reviews a few songs then headed over to the retirement home.

We sang a variety of favorite Primary songs including "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" and "I Know my Savior Loves Me."  We shared cookies and flowers with the residents and visited, then headed home.

Chinese New Year - Annual NRV-Families with Children from China

Every year we invite all our local friends who have adopted children from China as well as others who have some relationship to China and/or our children.  This year we celebrated the Year of the Tiger on Feb 20.  Chinese New Year (CNY) is a two week celebration. It begins with the first new moon after the full moon that follows winter solstice.  CNY started on Feb 14 this year.  It ends with the Lantern Festival which is also the full moon.  It is always special to me because it is when we were in China meeting B.

We usually have crafts, especially since the children are getting older. The oldest one of our bunch is about 12 or 13 years old.  The youngest is about 24 months.  The party includes food, a lion dance, bubble wrap stomp (instead of firecrackers) and red envelopes.

J.T. decorating his craft.

Final result of some of our artwork. Many thanks to A.M. for lending us her wonderful Chinese stamps.

Food!  We usually have traditional noodles, dumplings and less traditional foods - but delicious and creative none-the-less. We've gotten pretty good at making Nian Gao - Chinese New Year cake made with glutenous rice flour. We use peanuts and raisins in ours which add a little salt to our cake.  This year we also did a chocolate chip-pecan nian gao.

Dumplings!  People traditionally eat lots of dumplings for New Years because they resemble gold nuggets and that would bring prosperity to the family.  Eating long noodles brings long life to parents.  There are lots of fun Chinese New Year traditions, new clothes, not sweeping on New Year's Day so you don't sweep out good luck, fire crackers, etc., etc.

The group!

Lion Dance. We made this great lion head a few years ago and it just keeps on going. We fix it up a little bit each year.  Several kids got to be "first" and the others followed behind walking through the family room, dining room and kitchen and back in again to the cacophonous banging of everyone else.

This year we invited the children who sang at Chinese New Year - Virginia Tech program to do a repeat performance.

They sang the Tiger Song and a couple of others.  If I can figure out how to upload videos here again I will.

Here the older kids are getting ready to stomp on large bubble wrap - the sound is almost exactly like fire crackers and much safer.

Stomping!

 Little kids stomping!

Red envelopes - the children wish each of their parents and/or grandparents and/or senior person a Happy New Year and the parent/grandparent/senior person gives them a gift of a red envelop.  In seriously Chinese families with serious red envelopes this can add up to quite a bit of money.  At our celebration there were a $1 coin in each envelop, chocolate coins in another and a dollar bill in a third.

Grandma B., Boboa G. and C. handed out red envelopes to some of the girls.

B. receiving her red envelopes.  

Chinese New Year is a holiday we look forward to each year.  It ends our holiday season which starts with Thanksgiving, followed by Christmas and New Years.

Author's Party

Grandma runs a Writing Workshop for the younger kids in the home school group and A. runs one for the older kids.  Every semester or so the students select one story to edit and spruce up for presentation. This was J's first Author's Party.

J. did a story about the Wizard of Oz.

D. did one on the Birth of Jesus.

The children also learned manners, invited their parents to come in and sit down.  After the program was over and everyone had presented their stories they invited the parents to enjoy refreshments which included grapes, carrots and "ants on a log" .

Chinese New Year - Year of the Tiger

Year of the Tiger roared in with the annual Virginia Tech performance that the Chinese School of VPI is invited to sing at. This was J's first year singing. 

Our Valentine's Day flag and our Chinese New Year wind sock.

All dressed up in our Chinese New Year clothes.

Dress rehearsal.  J. is particularly cute with pig tails.

B. is directly behind J. in pink.

B. wanted braids.  

Singing the Lao Hu (tiger song). The words in English go something like this (sung to the tune of  "Are you sleeping"):

Here comes the tigers

Here come the tigers

See how fast the run

See how fast they run

One has no eyes

One has no tail

Isn't that odd

Isn't that odd.

(it looses something in the translation)

The Gonxi, gonxi song where they congratulate each other on a new year.

Dinner at a new Chinese Buffet in town with friends W. and S.

HS Valentine's Day

Every year the home school group gets together and throws a big Valentine's Day party.  Great fun was had by all on Feb. 12.

The kids gathered and things got organized.

The older kids played a get-to-know-you game with a list of things people can do, then they had to go around to the other kids and see if they could find a different person to sign each of the different things.  There was speak Spanish, had a broken bone, etc. etc.

L. enjoying a very red frosted cup cake and other delicious foods.  Parents brought in all sorts of yummy snacks.

Parents had a list of all the children who were going to participate and the children made valentines for each other. Each child also brought a box for others to put valentines in.  It is a highlight of the event.

A fun string game where yarn gets wrapped around each participant in a circle.  Two circles compete to see which one can wrap the yarn around then unwrap the people and wind up the yard into the original ball first.

A BINGO game using words found on candy hearts was played.

Not quite BINGO yet.

Candy Heart chopstick grab.  My B. excelled at this.

J. with her stash back at home.

History Group - Civil Rights

We previously went to Amazement Square to be introduced to some of the Civil Rights exhibits and events in Virginia.  On Feb 12 we had presentations from our students.  J. produced an impressive time line which we just left up on the wall for the rest of the presentation time.

D. read his report.

K. told us about Helen Keller.

C. talked about Rosa Parks.

J. talked about Gandhi.  B. also did a report on Gandhi.

N. did a baseball game of interesting facts related to minorities and baseball.

D. did a report.

C. did a report on Cesar Chavez.

C. did a report.

M. did a tree of Civil Rights - sort of an overview of everyone and everything related to Civil Rights.

Then we ate snacks - foods related to Civil Rights.

Spanish Tortilla

We learned about Spain during the World Wars and about Franco. Another dictatorship. We decided to make Spanish Tortillas which are basically a potato omelette.