Kung Hei Fat Choi

There is always a first time.

Today,I planned to have some Chinese-New-Year inspired classes. We did a number of activities that made us feel and experience the Chinese way of life.

1. We had a 'show and tell' portion. They brought some items related to this celebration. Some brought tikoy, lucky charms, calendars, chinese dress, red envelopes and other stuff which we cannot named.

2. We listened to a lot of some traditional Chinese music.

3. We wrote our names in pseudo-Chinese alphabet. And they loved it so much. Check out the pictures below.

4. We tried to pronounce properly some simple Mandarin(?) phrases (e.g. Good morning, good-bye, yes, no and thank you)

5. And the one I like the most is our SABEW or Share A Book Every Week, where I got to share Lily Toy Hong's Two of Everything. I also had the chance to tell one famous legend on this holiday. They story of the human-eating beast Nien/Nian really amused them.

My Chinese New Year has never been this memorable.

Kung Hei Fat Choi

Sixth Graders 2011 Mantras

Eight out of ten teachers had probably asked their pupils to come up with a list of new year's resolution yesterday,which was the first school day of 2011. And that is according to my own survey only. Haha.

One of those two non-traditional educators, did the same. Well, almost but not quite. Actually,he just renamed it; presented it just like any other teacher would.

He prefers the Buddhism/Hinduism term mantra over New Year's resolution. No, he's not a follower of Buddhan nor one of the thousand Hindu gods. He just wants to try something new. And he is happy with the outputof his pupils.

Congratulations to those who made the cut. For those whose work are not posted here, you're efforts are highly appreciated.

Learn from my mistakes. –Nikita

Spend less time watching TV. –Johainna

Always look for the good things in everyone. –Alea

Always be happy.—Aron

Act educated.—EJ

Never give up when there are trials we need to face.—Jireh