Rabbit Season

KUNG HEI FAT CHOI: Fairly early this morning, I surprised Annabelle by saying, "Happy New Year!"

"Hooray! It's 2012!" she said excitedly.

CJ laughed and corrected her. "It's not 2012, it's the Chinese New Year."

At that I laughed, because just moments before Annabelle had walked into the room, I'd said "Happy New Year!" to CJ and he, too had said, "Wow! It's 2012!"

We talked a bit about the Chinese calendar and how it's different from ours. We also learned that it is the year of the rabbit, and we talked about how the Chinese assign different animals to various years. Naturally, that led us to wonder what the animal was in the year the kids were born.

We learned CJ was born in the year of the ram, and, according to one Web site, "The ram is said to be proud and a bossy animal. A person born in this year should be a good doctor. The ram is known for gentleness and kindness. They also worry."

Annabelle was born in a monkey year. According to that same Web site, "The monkey is funny. It is not likely for a monkey to mind his own business. The person born this year would be a loving parent. People born in these years tend to be quick witted, clever, and creative. They learn quickly and are good at solving problems."

The kids learned a bit more about customs surrounding the holiday by playing nine different games on the "Countdown to the New Year" portion of the PBS Kids Web site. And we found book publisher Grollier had a page full of info and fun related to the Chinese New Year.

Some of the things we learned are that red, yellow and orange are are considered lucky colors and that on the third day before the New Year, Chinese people clean their houses so that they are prepared for the New Year with a clean home. On the second to last day before the New Year, Chinese people decorate their houses with lucky wishes written on red rectangular paper and flowers to welcome the New Year. We also learned people often greet each other by saying “Kung Hei Fat Choi,” which means blessing people to be richer.

Via the Seattle Public Libraries site, we read a non fiction title, "Chinese New Year" by David Marx, and a fictional picture book, "Sam and the Lucky Money." The second book was about a young boy who gets some lucky money (leisees) and him deciding how to spend it.
When we clicked on the "Meet the Author" tab for the second book, we learned that author Karen Chinn was born in Seattle, Washington and she attended UW.

We found a PDF of a Chinese dragon for the kids to color and cut out. I was really happy to see CJ was very interested in the project (as it's not usually the type of thing he's thrilled about). He paid painstaking attention to where and how he was using colors. The kids were both really happy with their dragons when they were done.Later, we made some fortune cookies, as they're probably the #1 food Americans associate with Chinese culture. However, I did point out to the kids that they probably wouldn't see a fortune cookie in China. The cookie's roots are really in Japan, and only here in the U.S. are they considered popular "Chinese" food.

The first step in our cookie process was making some strips with fortunes on them. Dweebs that we are, we used mostly video game quotes.
Even though it's hard on the hands (because the cookies are so damn hot), Annabelle insisted upon helping fold them.TWISTED TALE: We read down a sizable stack of books today. One of the titles was "Kate and the Beanstalk." It presented a feminine twist on a very old fairy tale.

At its conclusion, we talked about how it can be fun to "fracture" fairy tales. In that vein, I asked the kids to write something to go with the title "The Fourth Little Pig."

CJ wrote, "The 4th Little Pig had a house made of these three things. Hey, stiks and briks. Nothing can destroy that!"

Naturally, his writing prompted a lesson on iCk words.

Annabelle wrote: "Once apon a time there were three little pigs, then they heard that there was another little pig living next door. He had a house made out of concrete."

WHERE THE DEER AND THE ANTELOPE PLAY: We also read a book titled "Home on the Range." It was about the landscape and critters living in the Southwestern region of the U.S. The book could be (and was!) sung to the tune of the song by the same title. After we warbled through it, I played a golden oldie version of the tune for them on YouTube.
THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH: This afternoon we made time to have fun with magnets, using a kit we'd bought for a song at Value Village awhile back.

For starters, we learned that we could magnetize steel (in our case, a bolt), by striking it against a magnet. By doing so, we got its jumbled, tiny magnetized regions (called domains) lined up/pointing in the same direction, making it magnetic. By hitting the bolt with a hammer, we knocked its domains around, jumbling it up again, and causing it to start to lose its magnetism. Fascinating!

In another experiment, we took a small magnet with clearly labeled north and south halves and broke it up into about 6 pieces with a hammer. Before trying anything, we speculated whether the three small formerly all north half pieces would remain north pieces only, and if, likewise, the south would be strictly south, or would each little magnet piece have its own north and south ends?

When we started shoving them around near each other, we learned that they each, in fact, had their own north and south ends - and those tiny pieces would even flip over when attracted to the pull of its opposite.

The kids also had fun learning that the force of magnetic attraction is strong enough to work through paper and cardstock. CJ zoomed a rocket around using a magnet while Annabelle did the same with a butterfly.


OVERHEARD: Tonight, as Christian was prompting him through the bedtime routine, CJ said, "Your wish is my command. At least for now. I'll tell you when it isn't."

About 30 seconds later, when Christian asked him to turn off his computer, CJ declared, "Your wish is NOT my command any more."

Nice try, CJ.