Book: My First Chinese New Year by Karen Katz
A complicated theme like Chinese New Year for 3 to 5 year olds is a little bit daunting, so I decided to keep it as simple as possible. Like all of Karen Katz's books, "My First Chinese New Year" is a perfect storytime choice with big colorful illustrations and cheerful and cute text.
Dramatic Play
I read the book first as a way to introduce the theme, and then brought out a rabbit puppet who sniffed and shivered in the snow as I encouraged the kids to suggest what he should do to keep warm. Eventually it was decided that she should dig a hole, and all the kids pantomined digging down in the dirt with their paws. As soon as the hole we imagined we were digging together was big enough, we crawled in and curled up and went to sleep. After the parents started giggling about how long we were "sleeping", I sang Sleeping Bunnies, which has children hop around when they are instructed to "wake up soon".
Song
Sleeping Bunnies
Fingerplay
Funny Bunny
(Author unknown)
Here is a bunny (Raise two fingers.)
With ears so funny
And here is a hole in the ground. (Make hole with fingers of other hand.)
At the first sound she hears,
She pricks up her ears (Straighten fingers.)
And pops right into the ground. (Put fingers in hole.)
Craft
Bunny Ears
I found this very easy paper craft at
DLTK's Growing Together's craft website and made one for myself to wear during the storytime, and then left the instructions and the material out at the end of the storytime, so that parents and kids could make the craft together. It was so cute to see all the kids pouring out of the storytime room wearing the ears!
