Honoring my boys’ cultures and traditions is an important part of being in a multicultural family, and part of that is sharing their heritage with their classmates and friends, too. There’s no better opportunity to do that than celebrating Tet and Lunar New Year at school. My sons’ rank it as one of their favorite holidays, which makes it even more special.
I’ve been doing Lunar New Year (Chinese) and Tet (Vietnamese) celebrations in classrooms since the boys were in kindergarten, now eight years! What’s really cool is that as the years have passed with the same kids learning about the spring holidays, they have started remembering the food and traditions, and they get really excited when they realize it’s time for our annual party:
“Mrs. LeRoy, did you bring us pho and Chinese candies?”
“I was born in the year of the pig which means I am positive and generous.”
“Do we get red envelopes?”
It’s music to my ears!!!
If you want to hear some resounding excitement about celebrating the Lunar New Year at school, here are some easy ways to make it happen:
Teach
We usually start our parties by briefly tracing the history and traditions of the spring holiday.
Dating back more than 4,000 years, Lunar New Year/Tet are basically a combination of several western holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, and New Year’s all rolled into one. Each year, the Lunar New Year becomes the greatest human migration in history with millions of people traveling all across Asia to visit family.
One of the best ways to teach kids about the Lunar New Year is via a book. Happy, Happy Chinese New Year by Demi is a great one. It describes the traditions and rituals of the holiday in easy-to-understand text and colorful illustrations. For example, part of the preparations for the New Year include cleaning the house and making sure your homework is complete (Those work well in our house!). Lion dances (the big, gorgeous red lion costumes that have a line of people under the costume to make it dance) are also part of the fun – they scare away evil spirits and bring good luck.
It’s also fun to teach the kids how to say Happy New Year in Mandarin and Vietnamese.
Mandarin: Xin nian kuai le phonetically: Shin nyan ku-aye leh
Vietnamese: Chuc mung nam moi phonetically: chook moong numb moy
Eat
Preparation and sharing of food is central to the Lunar New Year. People spend weeks making special treats for the holiday. Think of how much food your grandmother makes before Christmas – all of the cookies, Chex mix, fudge and puppy chow. Unlike our Christmas goodies, these traditional Chinese delights have special meanings:
- Mandarin Oranges symbolize good fortune;
- Long noodles (don’t cut them) mean long life;
- Apples represent peace;
- Rice cakes are for wealth; and
- Steamed dumplings mean good luck.
Your local Asian market should have all of these treats to help celebrate in the classroom, and they often have special New Year versions of dried fruits, candies and cakes. Apples and oranges are great snacks because even kids with food allergies can eat them.
This year, I can’t go into the classroom to help with the party, but in past years, I’ve had parents call or text me to ask me where to find pho or other Chinese or Vietnamse food because their kids come home and rave about what they ate. I rarely have any leftovers, and kids are fighting for the last of the treats.
Play
It’s the Year of the Ox for 2021 – seems befitting after a rough 2020. We need a strong animal to power us through another challenging start to the year. An annual favorite is the reading of The Great Race, which is a tale about how animals raced to see the Jade Emperor, and their finish is their order in the Chinese Zodiac. The kids love figuring out which animal they were born under and what personality traits that animal embodies. Here’s a very comprehensive web site that describes them all. And this cute video illustrates the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=may2s9j4RLk
There are also a bunch of games you can play to reinforce the Chinese Zodiac animals. We print cards with the Chinese Zodiac animals and their accompanying years and have the kids figure out which animal is tied to the year we call out. Or we describe the personalities of an animal and the kids have to guess which one we’re talking about. I have also made a matching game from Vietnamese and Chinese words to English.
This Chinese Zodiac Matching game from Teach Beside Me is really fun, too.
I’ve also done a game where I bring in chopsticks, paper bowls and several different items. We have races to see who can put things like rubber bands, macaroni or blueberries from one bowl to the other with chopsticks the fastest.
A lovely tradition (and probably my favorite) is that of the Wishing Tree. People write their wishes and dreams on a piece of paper and then tie it to a tree branch. I have brought in a large tree branch to my sons’ classrooms and have the kids write their hopes for the new year on red pieces of paper which we tie to the branches. I’ve heard them wish for “more money for my parents;” “hoping my grandma feels better;” and even “I want to be better at basketball.”
Share
In addition to bringing family and friends sweets and other treats, the giving of red envelopes, or “hong pao” is what kids look most forward to. Red is a lucky color to Chinese and it represents good fortune. The envelopes contain money. So, it’s a bit like the gift-giving tradition of our December holidays in Western culture. You can use simple red, stationary envelopes or order true “Xi Li” ones.
Your local Asian market and Oriental Trading are great places to find snacks, decorations and crafts to get into the spirit.
There’s really nothing better than seeing the smiles on my boys’ faces as well as those of their classmates when we celebrate Lunar New Year at school. It fills them with a sense of pride and reinforces the importance of keeping ties to their homeland. And having their friends embrace it, too, well, it honestly brings tears to my eyes. While we don’t have a large Asian population in our area, we can still find ways to incorporate Chinese and Vietnamese heritage into our home and school. Learning more about Asian customs is a great way to engage students and open their minds to other places and people.
More resources for Lunar New Year parties at school:
https://www.china-family-adventure.com/chinese-new-year.html
John
February 20, 2021 at 7:25 pmLike so many of your posts, this one is filled with joy and color and happy faces. Thank you!