Chinese New Year Party

I get to do Activity Days for 8 year-old girls. There are so many girls that their are leaders for each year. This past Tuesday they all came over and we had a Chinese New Year Party. The real celebration will begin on Feb 14th and thought it would be fun for them to know about this tradition ahead of time. It is the year of the Tiger so when they all arrived I had them make Tiger masks. I also made each girl a packet that had the brief history, coloring pages, a page to practice writing Chinese symbols, how-to use chopsticks page, and info about the year they were born (the year of the snake). We then made paper lanterns, played a game with chopsticks (the girls LOVED this), ate Chinese food, then finished off playing some traditional Chinese games until their parents came to pick them up. It was lots of fun!

While finding stuff for this party it was interesting to read about the different animals. For those that don't know each year it is a different animal (12 different) and it is believed that children born that year will have characteristics of that animal.

Elliott and Kylee are both Tigers, Alyssa and I are Snakes (so is my Mom), Ryann is a rooster (chicken) and Addy is a pig.

If was fun to read about the different personalities and what animals they recommend for friends and lovers. Tigers and Snakes are not recommended matches....darn wish I would have read that 13 years ago.....:)

The invitation I made (info on back)

Tiger Masks

Paper Lanterns (Alyssa is in the pink sweater)