The girls were all dressed up for the Chinese New Year celebration at school. Emersyn wore a traditional Yunnan skirt. We purchased this skirt on our trip to Lijiang in 2009. Eleri had one, but she has long since outgrown it.

Eleri is wearing her Chinese New Year costume from a performance at Dulwich – the girls were sheep herders in the mountains of China. It still fit except we had to cut the elastic in the pant legs.

Eleri wearing her costume for her performance at the age of 4 – so cute. It was too big for her so we pinned the dress in the back. The costumes were made to fit each child so I always wondered if we had the wrong one.

Today was the last day of school to begin CNY break. In the morning, an all school assembly was held in the gym. The assembly was for the Spring Festival Celebration with a dragon dance and fire crackers – to bring good luck. The afternoon was for parties for the ES students. As room Mom, I organize the parties for food and craft. When I arrived at 2pm for the party, the children were reading. They find various reading corners in the class room. Eleri was reading with Zoe on the bean bags.

So Yeon’s Mom sent in dumplings and Mason’s Mom sent in a traditional sticky, sweet rice treat. All the kids love dumplings so they disappeared very quickly. The sticky, sweet rice treat was new for many of the children. They all tired it and loved it.

I am much better at organizing the parties than finding the craft. I did the usual internet search (really not sure what we did before the internet) to find some Chinese New Year crafts. Since it is the year of the snake, I found an easy snake craft. Eleri and I cut and glued the snake bodies prior to the party. A pipe cleaner is used to be able to bend the snake around things. Each child cut out their own head and tongue to finish the snake.

The second craft was a charm. Each child added two chinese coins, a snake and a monkey or sheep based on the year the child was born. Children born in 2004 are monkeys and 2003 children are sheep. The students added a tassel to complete the charm. The most important part of the charm is the animals glow in the dark!

The third craft was a coloring of a snake as one never knows how long the children will spend making one item – sometimes too fast and other times too slow. The children colored the snakes while Tommy’s Mom, Angela, shared some Chinese traditions with the children.

Eleri with Ms Burns. Ms Burns is just delightful and the perfect teacher for Eleri.

Another fun party at school for the children.