February 10th marks the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year in 2013. This coming Saturday evening we say “farewell” to the auspicious dragon of 2012 and “welcome!” to a prosperous Year of the Snake! Chinese people also call the Year of the Snake the Year of the “Little Dragon.” In Mandarin Chinese rather than call this occasion “the Chinese New Year ” we call it “the Spring Festival” (Chūn jié – 春節 (春节)) or “the Lunar New Year” (Nóng lì xīn nián 農曆新年 (农历新年)). At this time in China and Taiwan students have their winter break while parents receive Chinese New Year holidays from their work. People travel from all over to return to their hometowns to be with their families before the festival begins. Everyone wants to make it home for the Chinese New Year’s Eve family feast! This is what I love the most about the Chinese New Year – the celebration of the family!
While Chinese New Year is the most celebrated annual holiday in much of Asia, as you can see below people from all around the world from different cultures and ethnicities are also celebrating Chinese New Year and learning about it. Miss Panda Chinese is honored to join with our multicultural community of bloggers in celebrating the arrival of the Year of the Snake! We have prepared three fabulous prizes for one of our lucky readers. Please enjoy the various Chinese New Year themes and craft projects described in the blogs listed here and don’t forget to enter the Chinese New Year Blog Party Giveaway below!
With love,
Miss Panda
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Happy Chinese New Year – Blog Party
Bicultural Mama: Celebrating the Best of Both Worlds
– What Not to Do Over Chinese New Year
Daria: World Music for Children
Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes
– Cultural play date celebrating Chinese New Year
HapaMama: Asian Fusion Family and Food
– Chapter Books for Chinese New year: The Year of the Dog and The Year of the Rat – HapaMama
Hartlyn Kids
– How Much do You Know About Chinese New Year
InCultureParent: For parents raising little global citizens
– Chinese New Year: A Kid’s Craft Extravaganza
– A book review on the Story of the Chinese Zodiac
– InCultureParent’s Essential Chinese New Year Reading List
– Chinese Near Year Recipe: Yuanxiao (sweet rice balls)
KidWorldCitizen: activities that help young minds go global
– Yeh Shen: A Cinderalla Story from China
– Two Books About Chinese Dragons
– A Lesson Plan for Chinese New Year w/ Props and Stories
– Recipe for Nian Gao and book review of Runaway Rice Cake
– Making a Chinese Zodiac poster
learn create love: Home to 300+ printable craft pages
Little Artists – Encouraging Creativity
– Chinese New Year Snake Craft
– Another Chinese New Year Snake Craft
– Creative Tuesday: Fortune Cookies (Make them at home!)
Miss Panda Chinese: Mandarin Chinese for Children
– Chinese New Year Coloring Pages
– The Chinese New Year Cultural Series for Children – Year of the Snake Fun in Honolulu, Hawaii
– Chinese New Year-themed App Recommendations
– Chinese New Year Craft: Make a “Fú 福” Lucky Word Sign
– Chinese New Year Must-Know Lucky Phrases
– Happy Lantern Festival! Closing Out Chinese New Year Celebrations with a Lantern!
– Gong Xi! Gong Xi! The Excitement of Chinese New Year (Guest post on Making Multicultural Music)
– Celebrating the Chinese New Year in Taipie, Taiwan (Guest post on Travels with Baby)
Sprout’s Bookshelf: Children’s literature for a diverse world
– Picture books on Chinese New Year
What a tremendous resource – congratulations! Thanks to all the participants, but especially Miss Panda for putting it together!
Leanna, Thank you very much! It is such a pleasure to have so many wonderful multicultural community bloggers join me in the celebration of Chinese Lunar New Year.
I just this collection! We’ll be celebrating Lunar New Year on Sunday…thanks for sharing these ideas!
Thank you very much for visiting us. There are so many great ideas in this collection. It is such a good resource to share with parents and teachers.
Great ideas to share
Thank you! Happy Chinese New Year!
Thanks!
You are welcome. Thank you for dropping by.
This is awesome!
Thank you! It is great to see you here. Happy Year of the Snake!
Wow! What a wonderful compilation of resources and ideas for celebrating the Chinese New Year! Thank you for including mine.
Frances, it is indeed a great collection. I love them all. It is such a pleasure to have you join us. Thank you!
Can’t wait to share these activities with the kids I babysit!
Thank you for dropping by. I hope you have fun with the kids. Happy Chinese New Year!
I love Miss Panda’s poss and her cd! What a great way to learn Mandarin. And this give-away makes it even more fun so we all can catch the spirit of the new year!
Thank you very much, Daria!
What a wonderful list of resources! We don’t have Asian heritage but we love the culture and our 3 year old loves learning Mandarin! This weekend we are going to the Asian Festival to keep learning about this fantastic holiday! Xie Xie for the chance to win 🙂
Thank you for visiting! It is wonderful to know how much your 3 year old loves learning Mandarin. Culture and language go hand in hand. Have a great time learning about Chinese Lunar New Year!