My children started talking about the upcoming Chinese New Year a few weeks ago. They could not wait! A big part of their excitement was about food. They wanted lots of Chinese food. We could not possibly have all the food that they wanted with our special diet. However, I started researching and looking in the stores. We learned that you are supposed to eat 8 different foods for your New Year's meal. We also learned that each Zodiac sign is supposed to have a particular good luck food. The kids were excited to make this fun meal.
Here is what we ate ~ Bean soup (good luck to the rat), Asian noodles (good luck to the sheep), Sugared ginger (good luck to the horse and the pig), Oranges (good luck to the dragon), veggie stir fry, fortune cookies, fruit kabob and steak kabob.
I did allow wheat for this evening meal. The Asian noodles are plain with butter. I gave Tom Sawyer lots of vitamin C and double the digestive enzymes before dinner. I then gave him activated charcoal two hours after dinner. So far, so good. He is curled up in a chair reading a book right now.
The kids had so much fun learning how to eat with chop sticks. Everyone tried a bite of the sugared ginger. It was very spicy. Timothy and Daddy are the only ones who ate more than one piece.
After dinner the kids put on a dragon dance that they created earlier in the day. They used their homemade dragon masks. It was a fun evening for all. Earlier in the day, we read some picture books about the Chinese New Year and wrote about how each of our Zodiac signs were like us. (I pointed out how general each Zodiac sign is so that almost anyone can find a similarity of him or herself in any sign. I told them that it is just fun, but that we are all unique and not detemined by our sign.)
Blessings,
Dawn
Sounds like a fun day. I had some activities planned with my 6th grade students at school, but they lost privileges. I think it made me more sad than they were! LOL
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment on my blog! We studied several countries last year and I posted them all on my blog. Our favorite area was Scandinavia because we learned so much!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a lot of fun learning! I did not realize that there were luck foods for the different animals. We had a fun Chinese New Year's celebration, too.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dawn for the link up! Looks like a fun day!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! Sounds like a lot of fun and you managed to sneak some learning in there too.
ReplyDeleteFun and yummy....two of my favorite things :-)
ReplyDeleteSo much fun! And very yummy.
ReplyDeletehow fun!! Ginger is very spicy. The japanese use it alot too and we saw alot of it when we lived there.
ReplyDeleteHope the meal digested well!!
What a fun celebration!
ReplyDeleteWhat fun! The kids were brave to try the ginger. I like it and use it to combat stomach upset, but I can only take so much of it. My kiddos run from it! :)
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that Tom Sawyer did okay with the wheat.
Hey long time not talk too, was I suppose to call you back? Anyway just wanted to call dibs on the candy cane dress of LIttle Reds, I have been trying to snag one in Sissy size for next year with no luck, so a hammy down will do nicely hee hee. Call me soon, dragons looked cool. kristi
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