"Peek at the Week" February 4-8

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Chinese New Year!  We had such a great week learning about this holiday!

We read many nonfiction books about Chinese New Year.  We kept a list of all the new information we learned throughout the week!  (We have a few more friends to add on Monday!)

 

 One of the first things we learned is that 2013  is the Year of the Snake.  We also learned that Gung Hay Fat Choy is how the Chinese say Happy New Year!

We even tried out writing in Chinese characters on our lanterns.  It was definitely not an easy task!

 

Another fun fact we learned is that in China, the year you are born in is much more important than the date!  Each year is associated with an animal.  It is believed that you will share traits with the animal of the year you were born in.  We decided to compare and contrast our traits to our zodiac animal.

 It was fun to see that many of us had many of the traits as our animal!  

We were also very lucky to have a special visitor come into our class and teach us more about China!

Dr. Westfahl adopted his three daughters from China, and has been to the country three times!  He showed us how he flew there (ask your child if they remember the plane's route!), the citites he visited, the food he ate, and the culture he experienced.   He also taught us how to count to 10 in Chinese and how to say 'I love you'.  It was a great experience!

On Friday, we had our Chinese New Year celebration.  On the last day of Chinese New Year, there is always a big parade with a dragon.  The dragon is a symbol of strength and joy.  We made our own dragons to hang up in the hall!

 

We also had Chinese food for lunch!  During the Chinese New Year, people gather together with their families and have huge meals.  We ate together as a family to honor this tradition.  We had fried rice and egg rolls. 

 

We also celebrated the 100th day of school on Thursday!  I seriously cannot believe how quickly this year is flying by! We made a classbook about what we would do with $100.  It was a hoot!

 We also put a big name collection box on our door.  I asked the kids if they think we can continue it until we come up with 100 ways to name 100.  Stay tuned!

In science this week we observed what happens to water when you add heat.  We filled two cups with water.  One had cool water and one had warm water.  Then we put a cup over them and watched what happened.

We noticed that the cup with warm water started getting 'foggy'.  This is water turning into a gas!

We recorded our observations in our science journals.  Next week we will add the properties of gas to our science board.

We had a great week filled with so much fun!  Thank you to everyone who volunteered to send items for our Valentine's Day party.  Don't forget to send your child's valentines by Thursday!

Conference confirmations will be sent by the end of the week. I am really looking forward to meeting with all of you!

 

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Love,

Ms. Havig