We love learning about different cultures and traditions in first grade!  Today, we were so lucky to have a special parent visitor come share with us about Chinese New Year.

First, we watched this video to gain some background knowledge:

Then, we learned to write and speak a few words in Chinese.  The students were interested to learn that Chinese students practice writing one character for each word, rather than combining letters as we do.  We also learned that when our parent visitor was in first grade, her homework sometimes involved practicing one word up to one hundred times!

We also learned that the dragon is an important symbol in Chinese culture.  The class had a great time creating these festive dragon decorations while we discussed the Chinese zodiac and figured out what our signs are based upon what year everyone was born.  Our class is full of dependable oxen (including me!) and confident tigers.

If you have a special cultural tradition you’d like to share with us, we’d love to have you visit our classroom!