Chinese New Year (and a little bit about "Choice Time")

Today marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year, which (according to Wikipedia) can be celebrated for fifteen days.  I think I could probably eat Chinese food for fifteen days.  (Actually, freshman and sophomore year in college, I worked for a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant with terrific food.  Andy and I lived in an extremely run down efficiency apartment on campus, and the owners of the restaurant pretty much kept us alive on free chicken fried rice and moo goo gai pain.)

Anyway, this means that if you'd like to mark Chinese New Year in your own home today, tomorrow, or next week, feel free!  We don't have a decent Chinese restaurant near us, so we'll be making dumplings and lo mein ourselves (I hope) for tonight's dinner.  You might eat some noodles for longevity and some oranges for good luck.  Or order in some moo goo gai pan. :-)

This is what our whiteboard looked like today:

Now, a note is probably in order here.  This is the list for choice time.  That means that I will be happy with any of the activities listed here, but not all of them (or even most of them) will probably be done.  Having a list this long just gives the kids a fair amount of freedom in what they're doing... but it also gives them enough structure to keep them from drifting all over the place, or even shutting down due to too many choices.  It also helps me, because I usually at least think I'm prepared for all of these choices, even if I do generally invent them on the spur of the moment.  Unfortunately, sometimes I think I'm prepared for something I write on the board when the kids have actually used up a key ingredient in the activity.  That happened today, actually; I had envisioned the dragon puppets made with paper bags -- easy -- but the kids had used up all the paper bags here.  So we dug up some old socks instead.

Andrea asked me a long time ago how I kept track of my choice time ideas, and I was embarrassed to answer that I didn't actually keep track of them.  (Remember Seinfeld's "Tomorrow Guy" routine?  Remembering the choices is for Tomorrow Guy.  Ahem.)  What I am thinking now is that it is super easy to take photos of the whiteboard whenever I write down new choices (sometimes our choices last all week, sometimes only for a day).  So I'm thinking that I will post the pictures of the whiteboards over at my learning notes blog (and if you visit there right now, you won't come away very inspired; it's been a rough week, but thankfully today has been better, so maybe you ought to wait a day or so until I put up a new, more positive entry). 

Back to my original intention, though, which was to post some photos of the day:

Katydid and Farmerboy trying out chopsticks.  I bought a set of "cheater" chopsticks and a set of real chopsticks in fabric rolls at Target over the summer; they were in the bargain bin for $1 a pack.  (What you don't see in this picture is that after Farmerboy moved on to a different activity, Pip helpfully pulled all the cheater chopsticks apart, making them into real chopsticks after all.)

After Farmerboy used the chopsticks for a while, he wanted to pour something, so I set up a tray for him with a saki set, also purchased at Target for the low, low price of $1.  He loved this.  In fact, that's the first thing he said to me: "Mommy, I love doing this!"  After he practiced pouring water, he poured juice and milk for himself and for all of us, and even drank out of a saki cup for lunch.  (He also ate his lunch on the tray.)  This is why I stick with Montessori even though the twins stole the sponge a little later and squeezed water all over the table.  And the floor.  And almost all over Gareth's drawing.  I just wish I was more consistent.  But I'll be working on it (again) when we get home from our Tennessee trip.

Gareth and Katydid also chose to investigate the Chinese zodiac.  Katydid started work on a birthday banner for herself, and Gareth started working on a New Year banner... but he had a heck of a time finding a picture of a rat to draw from.  I'll post pictures when they're finished, but they were both distracted by the opportunity to make dragon puppets.

Gareth's is the big one with antlers and whiskers.  Katydid's is the one with pink feathers.  (Could you guess?)  Farmerboy also made one, but he, ah, got a little upset when the mouth fell off, and after that his puppet suffered a small accident.  (Or an "on-purpose", as a friend of mine once made the distinction.)

I now have a crowd around my chair, which means my computer time is up... and it's time to defrost the beef for lo mein and check the dumpling recipe.  Happy New Year!

Comments

[Theresa]

What fun! I love your ideas! I wish I had a Target nearby for a 1 dollar saki set and chopstick wraps. Very neat!

[Lindsay]

I'm new to your blog, so you may have explained this in the past and I've missed it: but could you tell me more about "choice time"? How long does it last? What are the parameters? What ages does it work well with? What is your role as the teacher during this time? How do you get the kids to keep working once they have finished a choice? And do your choices always center around themes? Thanks so much!

[Marjorie]

That looks like so much fun! I second Lindsay's question on how long choice time lasts and at what time of the day does it fall? I love the sake sets. We saw them too and I wish I would have picked one up they were so cute.