Chinese New Year!

A couple weeks ago, my SIL let me know about Panda Express's offer for Chinese New Year. They provided a curriculum pack and coupons to their store if you signed up that week. I quickly jumped on it thinking the curriculum would be fun and that we would enjoy a yummy dinner! Well come to find out we don't have a Panda Express anywhere near us...bummer! But I liked the curriculum pack. There were several activities and a DVD with a test to take after watching.

I made veggie stir-fry and brown rice for dinner. We all either used or attempted to use bamboo chopsticks.

I gave their girls sugared ginger for an after dinner treat. PF thought it was incredibly spicy.

Ladybug seemed to really enjoy it.

Butterfly ate without complaint and so did Dragonfly. Although after finishing, Dragonfly kept licking my shirt to try and get the taste out of her mouth which was cracking me up.

Coloring the red envelopes call Lai Sai. These envelopes are filled with money in even denominations except 4 (unlucky number)and the children have to beg for the envelopes from their relatives. PF was taking Chinese tutoring a few years ago and really got to play this out. She received some actual Chinese money.

Chinese finger traps. We had these and I thought tonight would be a great time to pull them out.

Dragonfly had fun coloring but the cutting was a little over her skill level so instead she cut lots of tiny squares.

Butterfly's finished lantern and Lai Sai.

We had a great time celebrating the first day of the year of the rabbit. We discussed what year it was when everyone was born. Ladybug thought it was so cool that her and I share the rooster. Dragonfly was not pleased to be in the year of the boar and insisted she was a monkey.

We have basically taken this year off from learning Mandarin but I am looking forward to all my girls studying Mandarin again in a few weeks. Right now Dragonfly picks up some from watching Ni Hao Kai-Lan. I really have no ability with foreign languages so PF is going to be a great help to me when teaching her sisters the language.