Wednesday, January 16, 2013

N is for nián 年

Chinese new year is one month away! In these couple of weeks, I planed my lesson with connection to Chinese new year, which is the most important holidays in China. We talked about firecrackers before, my kids are familiar with the traditions, symbols and the tales of Chinese new year. They all know Nian is a monster who came out at the new year's eve to eat people and animals. I find this new animation about Nian with fantastic music and pictures.  The story adds a cute baby Nian. They enjoyed the new story and thought it was because Nian that Chinese celebrate the huge festival all over the world.

We made our own Nian! They drew scary Nian on the paper plate and add colorful stripes as hair. Then we had a lion dance with Nian masks! I love this simple lion dance to reinforce numbers in Chinese. 
Nian in Chinese means Year. This is how to say Happy New Year in Chinese:

No comments: