Lunar New Year

My Brownie unit (Girlguiding) really enjoyed using these three new books for our meeting about Lunar New Year. We spent an entire evening learning, reflecting and creating with lots of inspiration.

I Love Chinese New Year by Eva Wong Nava & Xin Li (Scholastic UK) shares one little girl’s Chinese New Year traditions. There’s a buzz in her house as her parents get ready for family to arrive and the celebrations to begin. Mai-Anne tells readers about her family’s decorations, special foods, clothing and gifts. When her grandmother, Nai Nai, arrives, she tells the story of the twelve animals of the zodiac and makes links between their symbolism and the members of the family who were born in that year. Mama is creative like the Snake, Baba is friendly and steady like the Goat and Mai-Anne is agile and intelligent like the Monkey. Themes of good luck, good furtune and blessings run through the story.

Our Brownies (girls age 7-10) were captivated by the story. The loved the brightly coloured animals and liked spotting the one from their own birth year. We discussed the different foods and traditions. The girls were able to make comparisons with how their own families celebrate special days and link ideas in the book to what they already knew about Chinese New Year.

All About Lunar New Year by Kevin Tsang & Linh Nguyen (Scholastic UK) is a gold mine of information, activities and recipes for children. At Brownies, we used the first few pages to share facts about Lunar New Year, discussing which countries celebrate it and the meanings of each animal in the zodiac. The girls were excited to work out which year they were born in and what that said about their personalities. Everyone was smiling as they read the qualities their animal represented – positive affirmations for them and perhaps a bit of encouragement to be more like their animal. We needed to discuss the meaning of some of the words for the benefit of the younger girls (empathetic, captivating) but this enriched the discussion for everyone.

As the Year of the Tiger is coming to an end and the Year of the Rabbit is just beginning, we chose two paper folding crafts from the book for our Brownies to try. At 7, some of them need to practise their fine motor skills so these activities were just right.

They folded tiger “chatter boxes” or “fortune tellers”. Inside, they added wishes for the new year.

They also made bouncing rabbits which again required straight, sharp folds. The girls loved how the rabbits actually jumped when they pushed down on them.

Some of our older Brownies were thrilled to be able to use this beautiful book. Press Out and Decorate Chinese Zodiac by Kate McLelland (Nosy Crow) is shiny and luxurious. The cardboard pages are full of animal ornaments that can be pressed out, coloured, put together and hung up.

Because they could sense it was a special book, the Brownies really took care with their colouring and were very proud of their results. They loved the 3D element of the ornaments and the way many of the animals could stand up on their own. Felt tips were really effective, creating colourful, eye-catching ornaments. There are 27 ornaments in the book meaning there are about enough for a class and plenty for a Brownie unit. We’ll be using this book again next year with another group of our girls.