How do you celebrate New Year's? Most of the people I know go to a party or celebrate with their family at home, but have you ever looked at what some of the traditions are from around the world? There are some interesting ones.
Showing posts with label new year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new year. Show all posts
New Year Traditions from Around the World
How do you celebrate New Year's? Most of the people I know go to a party or celebrate with their family at home, but have you ever looked at what some of the traditions are from around the world? There are some interesting ones.
Fun Facts about Times Square New Year's Eve Ball Drop
How was your Christmas? Ours was good, but it included 12 hours without power besides a generator. Thank God for the generator which gave us heat and a microwave. Our Christmas dinner which really wasn't included microwaved lasagna with my father's birthday cake for dessert that had hand whipped frosting. Luckily Hazel thought it was fun to hand whip the frosting. But as always it is so great to be with family.
New Year's Eve Birthday Bash Ideas
Hazel and I are always talking about ideas for birthday parties. Our big plans for this year's party was to do an American Girl Beforever Party. However with her new school she wants to invite the boys so we needed to change the theme. We came up with a New Year's Eve Birthday Bash. All of our planning was basically thrown away and we started fresh. We went to check things out over at Oriental Trading in their birthday section. We had fallen in love with these Pink and Gold Birthday Party Dinner Plates and planned the party around them. (We had chosen them for the American Girl party as well.)
Year of the Rooster-- Reviews & More to Celebrate the Chinese New Year -- MKB Chinese New Year Blog Hop
The lunar new year which is celebrated in China as well as many other countries
is January 28th this year. We will be saying goodbye to the monkey and enter the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese Horoscope. We have had a fun year of the monkey and are looking forward to the year of the rooster. To teach Hazel more about the Chinese culture we have enjoyed two books written for the year of the rooster. Both are bilingual books. The first is called The Year of the Rooster by Oliver Chin and illustrated by Juan Calle.
Paper Cutting for Celebrations -- a Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party
This Thursday is the Multicultural Kid Blogs' Chinese New Year Blog Hop. In preparation I have been gathering some great resources and I thought I would share the craft one with you tonight. It is Paper Cutting for Celebrations: 100+ Chinese Designs for Festive Holidays and Special Occasions by Zhao Ziping.
New Year's Ideas -- Book Reviews & More
Disclosure: I was sent these books to review
free of charge in exchange for an honest review.
All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive
any other compensation for this review. Please note: Most of these books are no longer in print. I have provided links to buy them used if they are not.
New Year's always gets me thinking. I have found memories of sleepovers with a friend and each of my sisters had a friend as well. I think this was the only time I had a friend sleepover when my sisters did, so there were some fun games we all played together as well as a ginger ale toasts at midnight. I think about my "resolutions" from the past year and what I want to do for the next year. So today I am sharing with you four books that are bring these thoughts to my mind. Let's start with Girls' Night In by Gemma Barder and illustrated by Katy Jackson.
New Year's always gets me thinking. I have found memories of sleepovers with a friend and each of my sisters had a friend as well. I think this was the only time I had a friend sleepover when my sisters did, so there were some fun games we all played together as well as a ginger ale toasts at midnight. I think about my "resolutions" from the past year and what I want to do for the next year. So today I am sharing with you four books that are bring these thoughts to my mind. Let's start with Girls' Night In by Gemma Barder and illustrated by Katy Jackson.
The Little Monkey King's Journey & Chinese Lantern Festival
Did you know the Chinese New Year is still continuing? It ends with the Lantern Festival which is fifteen days after the first day and this year that is Monday, February 22nd. Hazel and I read about it in Celebrating Chinese Festivals by Sanmu Tang. (We reviewed this fabulous book earlier this month.) Update: This book is no longer in print!
The Year of the Monkey -- Exploring Chinese New Year with books & Chinese New Year Link Party
We have explored the lunar new year and more specifically the Chinese New Year for several years now and have tried many different crafts, recipes and books (see below for a sampling and links). We have looked at the Chinese Zodiac and as of yesterday we have begun the year of the monkey. Last year was the year of the sheep.
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| A Monkey Valentine Craft from a Kit |
The Year of the Monkey -- Book Review
February 8, 2016 begins the lunar new year. There are several cultures that celebrate the lunar new year, but the Chinese is the largest one and the most heard about one. The Chinese have an animal zodiac for each year. It is based on a twelve year (and twelve animal) system. We are ending the year of the sheep and will be beginning the year of the monkey. There are several versions of legends as to how the twelve animals were picked. Today we will focus on the year of the monkey!!
Love & Care for the One and Only You -- New Year Resolution Review #5
Sharing Saturday is still open!! Stop by to be inspired and share your child-oriented crafts and activities!
Disclosure: I was sent this book to review
free of charge from Worthy Inspired.
All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive
any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each
item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase
them.
On Monday I started a new series for this week: New Year Resolutions Review. My first goal for 2016 is to work with Hazel more regularly on her Spanish. My second goal was to find joy in my every day life. My third goal is to grow closer to Jesus. My fourth goal (and these are in no particular order) is to find time to relax. Today's goal is one many people make at New Year's. It is for better health and fitness. The product I am reviewing for this goal is Love & Care For the One and Only You by Michelle Medlock Adams.
On Monday I started a new series for this week: New Year Resolutions Review. My first goal for 2016 is to work with Hazel more regularly on her Spanish. My second goal was to find joy in my every day life. My third goal is to grow closer to Jesus. My fourth goal (and these are in no particular order) is to find time to relax. Today's goal is one many people make at New Year's. It is for better health and fitness. The product I am reviewing for this goal is Love & Care For the One and Only You by Michelle Medlock Adams.
The Time Chamber -- New Year Resolution Review #4
On Monday I started a new series for this week: New Year Resolutions Review. My first goal for 2016 is to work with Hazel more regularly on her Spanish. My second goal was to find joy in my every day life. My third goal is to grow closer to Jesus. My fourth goal (and these are in no particular order) is to find time to relax. The product I am choosing to review today to help with my relaxation is an adult coloring book called The Time Chamber by Daria Song. Now this book is the second book and the first is The Time Garden, the first adult coloring book I reviewed.
The Imitation of Christ -- New Year Resolution Review
On Monday I started a new series for this week: New Year Resolutions Review. My first goal for 2016 is to work with Hazel more regularly on her Spanish. My second goal was to find joy in my every day life. Today I share my third goal (which these are in no particular order for my goals). Today's goal is to grow closer to Jesus. The book to help me do this is The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis and compiled and edited by James N. Watkins.
Joy In Every Moment: Mindful Exercises -- New Year Resolution Review #2
On Monday, I introduced my New Year Resolution/Goal Review Series. Today I am sharing my second resolution which is to find joy in my everyday life and happiness with what I have. Storey Publishing sent me the perfect book to help me succeed with this goal for 2016: Joy in Every Moment by Tzvia Gover.
Foreign Language for Kids by Kids -- New Year Resolution Review
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links where I will receive a small commission if you purchase through them at no cost to you. I was given access to Foreign Language for Kids by Kids programs for six months free of charge in exchange of writing honest reviews. All opinions in this post are my own.
Do you make new year resolutions? I often do not or should I say I pretend to but never keep them. Now that it is over a week past New Year's Day, I have time to think about what I want 2016 to really look like. This week I am going to share with you some of the products that are helping me with some of my resolutions or let's say desires for the new year.
Resolution #1
The first resolution is to work more consistently with Hazel on her Spanish. Back in September we shared a new program that we are trying. I had big hopes but first grade brought things like homework and exhaustion. But now that it is January my goal for us is to do the lessons at least four times a week.
Learning about Rosh Hashanah - Jewish High Holidays for Kids
As a former teacher I always thought the new year should start in September with school. Next week it will be Rosh Hashanah or the Jewish New Year. Then ten day after it is Yom Kippur. Many of the local schools give the teachers and students the Jewish high holidays off. Hazel's does not since it is a private Christian school. However I like to teach Hazel about other cultures which includes other religions. This post is part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs Jewish High Holidays for Kids Blog Series. To learn about the Jewish high holidays we did what we do to learn about any new culture, we went to the library. The first find was this DVD on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It was a great introduction for Hazel to the holidays.
We also found many books on Rosh Hashanah and some on Jewish holidays. These are the ones we decided to focus on. (For a round-up of books about Rosh Hashanah, check out All Done Monkey's post in this series.)
Chinese Zodiac and Chinese New Year Book Reviews
This post is part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs Chinese New Year Blog Series and Giveaway. More details about all of this below including the giveaway!!
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Seal Nakhon Si ThammaratBy Fine Arts Department (กรมศิลปากร) of Thailand.[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
The Dragon New Year Book Review for Multicultural Children's Book Day & Chinese New Year Blog Series
Today I am going to review my second book for Multicultural Children's Book Day (MCCBD). On Monday I reviewed the first book, Endeavour's Long Journey. There I shared all the exciting things going on with MCCBD. MCCBD is a national event which Valarie Budayr from Jump Into a Book and Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom created to celebrate diversity in children's books. MCCBD team hopes to spread the word and raise awareness about the importance of diversity in children’s literature. Our young readers need to see themselves within the pages of a book and experience other cultures, languages, traditions and religions within the pages of a book. We encourage readers, parents, teachers, caregivers and librarians to follow along the fun book reviews, author visits, event details, a multicultural children’s book linky and via our hashtag (#ReadYourWorld) on Twitter and other social media. This year's MCCBD is January 27th! The 2015 sponsors for MCCBD are:
Sharing Saturday 14-52
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Holidays
1) From Living Montessori Now: Free Kwanzaa Songs and Rhymes for Circle Time
2) From A Life in Balance: Kid-Friendly New Year's Eve Party for Families
3) From The Practical Mom: Glitter Stars with Popsicle Sticks
4) From Powerful Mothering: How to Make a Quiet Book
All About Japan By Willamarie Moore -- Book Review
Today I am going to review for you the wonderful book, All About Japan by Willamarie Moore. I absolutely love this series of books from Tuttle Publishing. They are packed full with so much information and they teach so much about the culture and life in the country. (I reviewed All About Indonesia by Linda Hibbs in July.) This book helps us center our exploration of Japan. It shares traditional stories, holidays, life in the city as well as the country (told by children who live there), recipes, crafts, dance, music, poetry, and so much more.
With any book that has a recipe or craft in it, Hazel wants to try it, so we did. The book has three recipes in it and we tried two. I did not try to make Onigiri since I couldn't find the ingredients and I didn't really think Hazel would like them. We did try Okonomiyaki. It is described like a pancake with fillings but reminded me more of an omelet. I do not think I cut our fillings up enough and they fell apart on us when we flipped and removed them. Steve and I both thought they were all right and Hazel liked to eat the chicken filling instead. The pancake batter had cabbage in it which is why they are green.
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| Oknomiyaki |
The other recipe we tried was mochi cakes. We made them the day after we read "The Grateful Statues" in Japanese Children's Favorite Stories by Florence Sakade. The story is about a kind, poor couple. The old man does something kind for some statues and his kindness is rewarded with a large mochi cake. Therefore making mochi cake right afterward was perfect. Now are mochi cakes did not turn out pretty. We should have looked at pictures of them first, but Hazel was having fun making shapes out of them. We also could not find sweet rice flour or mochiko and used regular rice flour. They were not as sweet as they probably should have been. I like them though.
Mochi is often a treat for O-Shogatsu (New Year), so it seems appropriate to also show you our Nenga-jo Greeting card. Since 2015 is the year of the sheep, we used a sheep rubber stamp and Hazel wrote on the numbers. Nenga-jo are usually postcards that are sent the first three days of January.
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| Nenga-jo |
And what exploration of Japan would be complete without some origami? The book shares a wonderful song about frogs and gives the instructions to make an origami hopping frog.
She also loved that they could hop.
All About Japan is the perfect book for anyone who wants to learn more about Japan, its history, culture, etc. There are so many activities throughout it from learning about haikus to writing Kanji. We would have done more of the Kanji if we hadn't had the other books. The other activity we did do was trying the Bon Dance. I however did not get any pictures since I was doing it with Hazel. I am also almost done with a kimono for her doll. She picked a fabric that reminds me of sakura (cherry blossoms), so I'll wait until it is finished and share it with our cherry exploration! Stay tuned!!
For more books and activities to learn about Japan check out:
- Learning Japanese with books and flashcards
- Exploring Japan with books and more
- Sora and the Cloud
- Origami Butterflies
- Asian Kites
- Asian Pacific Island Heritage Month Blog Hop
- Asian-Pacific Island Book Round-Up
- Multicultural Christmas Books
- Play! Book Review
- Happy New Year Around the World
- My Multicultural Pinterest Board
Lunar New Year and Year of the Horse Book Review
Disclosure: I was sent these books digitally to review free of charge from Immedium. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.
Although we celebrate our New Year on January 1st, there are many places around the world that celebrate the new year at a different time (and some celebrate it at two times January 1st and a cultural traditional time). Friday, January 31st is the lunar new year. Now some cultures that celebrate the lunar new year are the Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Mongolian. The Chinese are the largest group that celebrate it and is the one we hear about most often.
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