A Trip To Chinatown

Aloha friends or should I say Kung Hee Fat Choy?  It's Corinna from Surfin' Through Second.

Depending on what part of the country or world you are in this Chinese New Year greeting may be pronounced differently.  Here is Hawaii Kung Hee Fat Choy means "May Prosperity Be With You".

January 31st marks the official beginning of Chinese New Year.  Here in Honolulu we have our own little Chinatown.  I took my girls on a trip there this week to pick ups some items for my class and to get ready for our Chinese New Year parade next Friday.

These lions guard the entrance to a little market area in Chinatown.  

It is the year of the Horse, so there were a variety of decorations with a horse figure.

The Chinese zodiac has 12 animals. That each represent a year in the 12 year cycle.

Red and Gold decor is found throughout Chinatown.  Chinese families decorate their doors and windows with these bright colors.

Eating a fresh, whole fish on the Lunar New Year is good luck.

We ran across these guys on our trip through the market.  I don't think Bull Frog is on the menu for Chinese New Year!  My daughters begged me to buy them one as a pet.  Ummm, no thank you.

We stopped at the Chinese bakery and grabbed some Chinese Buns.  These had hotdogs in them, mine was filled with BBQ pork.  Yumm!

This is a sticky rice pudding called Gau.  Eating it during the new year is supposed to bring good luck.

These sesame balls are also a traditional food.  They are called Jien Duy.  They are usually filled with a sweet bean paste, but this one was filled with sweet coconut.  This is what I always eat on my trips to Chinatown. They are delicious!

We picked up some fun trinkets as well.  Drums and cymbals are great noise makers for Chinese New Year parades. 

 I picked up some packs of red envelopes to give to my students.  These are called Lai See.  Traditionally they are filled with crisp new money (bills) to be given from Seniors to Juniors.  Meaning an adult to a child, an employer to an employee, married couples to single friends.

Mine will not be filled with money.  I picked up a bag of Chinese candy to fill mine.

Our last purchase was our own lion puppet.  In a traditional lion dance you feed the lion money to bring you luck in the new year.

We had lots of fun on our trip and came away with some great items for this week.

In class we made these great dragons from Teach Kids Art.  We will attach a wooden dowel to the neck to carry them in our parade.

We will also be using some activities from this wonderful pack. 

Katie Knight created this unit and has a great post on Chinese New Year as well. {Click Here}

I will leave you with a little freebie that I made for my class.  Perfect for my early finishers.

Click on the picture to grab this freebie in my TpT store.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you gained a few new ideas for Chinese New Year!

                                                             

100th Day Celebration Hooray!!

It's Wednesday here at the Primary Chalkboard! So you know what that means!

You know we all say it! LOL! It's Leslie from 

and I'm here to offer you some ideas for your 100th Day! I guess for some of you, that may not happen til May the way I see these snow days popping up! Good and bad, I guess! I live in Florida where we have hurricane days that occur (thankfully) very few and far between. Too bad we don't have days for it's too dang hot! LOL!

Our 100th day falls on January 31st and we have a WHOLE day planned of fun 100 themed activities. Some favourite are:

Dress up as a 100 year old lady!  And have the kids dress up as 100 year old little people!!

This was the first year we did it... Not too old looking and I couldn't let the hair thing go. But check out those sporty knee highs! 

This was last year. I took the plunge and powdered my hair! Took forever to wash out but the kids loved it!!! The kids in our classes even dressed up! 

Sweet Stacy from Funky Fresh Firsties made this adorable shirt (you can check out her blog to see how you can buy one!) and  used the Aging Booth her kiddos and the adorable pack she created! They were so cute!

And see how this 

helped transform darling Tammy from Fluttering in First Grade into a 100 year old! (She looks adorable!!! Don't listen to her post!!!)

 Make 100th Day Snacks! Who doesn't love food! Check out Corinna's post from Surfin' Through Second Grade's snack idea and her fabulous idea of 100 ways to make 100!! Clever! And there are some recipe ideas, too, for a trail mix. 

Rock it out with 100th Day Glasses!

Cute kid, not included but you can download the glasses here from Scholastic! 

We make a headband:

I tried to upload a tracer for the headband but the paper was too long. Honestly, you know what I used? A Burger King crown! Yup! Just make sure there are 10 points on the crown (I used a small piece of sentence strip to make a headband. Some kids will not need it). I cut out colourful strip and each kid placed 10 somethings on each strip: 10 fingerprints, 10 stamps, 10 hole punches, whatever. Then you staple them to the points and you have a crown! Ok, jesters hat, but they love it!!! 

I am looking to add some new ideas into our 100th day repertoire and my Chalkie sisters came to the rescue! Please check out their blogs and links! 

I hope you were able to get some ideas for your 100th day and if it already passed, well, hopefully saved for next year! Have a great week and check back with us for more ideas! 

Snowmen You Can Count On! (common core aligned) and a FREEBIE!

Hi All, This is Deb from Fabulously First and I wanted to check in with all of you and see if everyone survived all the snow we have had recently!  

I live in Georgia and we actually saw flurries but no bad weather for us here like some of you have had.  You know if we see a flurry in Georgia the schools close down in a split second.  LOL

This year our only inclement weather day we had was because of some really low temperatures and the school system didn't want students standing out at bus stops in frigid temperatures.  

Speaking of FREEZING!  I have a great little product freebie that meets the following standards that is great for independent centers or a whole class activity.

    Click the Image to Download the FREEBIE!

Extend the Counting Sequence:

CCSS Math Standard 1.NBT.A.1

Count to 120, starting at any number less than 120.  In this range, read and write numerals and represent a number of objects with a written numeral.

CCSS Math Content 1.NBT.B.3

Compare two two digit numbers base on meanings of the tens and ones digits, recording the results of comparisons with the symbols >, +, and <.

CCSS Math Content 1.NBT.B.2c

The numbers 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 refer to one, two three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine tens (and 0 ones)

CCSS Math Content 1.NBT.C.5

Given a two-digit number, mentally find 10 more or 10 less than the number without having to count; explain the reasoning used.

If you download the free product and you are interested in the full product please click on the image below.

Thanks for stopping by Primary Chalkboard today for reading and grabbing your FREEBIE!  Stay warm everyone!

100th Day is Here (Or Almost Here)!

The 100th Day of School is one of my favorites! 

It's very momentous for those little ones. 

Here are a few ideas for you guys to think about! 

First, you should try a family project.

Ask them to make some sort of project together using 100 items. 

I got a variety of collections, art work, and very unique posters! 

Another fun activity is to use this freebie exercises page...

This freebie sheet is free on Google Docs, but it is part of my 100th Day pack! 

Here are some of my kiddos last year working out! 

Check out this freebie from Anna! 

Use Scholastic Book Orders to use 100th Day math! 

Making Words with One Hundred Days

This is part of my 100th Day pack as well. :-) 

Make a school train! 

Each classroom gets 4 trains (or 1 if you want a small train). Classrooms must decorate with 100 items. We did this at my old school and it turned out really cute! 

Thanks guys for reading! 

-Jessica from Second Grade Nest-

Some Winter Fun

Hi Guys!
It's Faith from 1st Grade Fantabulous.  I'm not sure that you checked in the last few days, but we have had an awesome giveaway full of Martin Luther King Jr. products.  Well, my friend Latoya picked three winners yesterday.

The winners of our giveaway are:

Now, I don't know about you guys, but I LOVE Pinterest ideas and freebies, but this time of year it is hard to make time to go see what is out there.  Winter seems to leave me a little tired and at times unmotivated.  So, I visited the Primary Chalkboard (PC) blogs and found some of my favorite January activities.  You can click on any of the pictures and it will take you to that PC blog so you can read about what they were doing.

#1 Homemade Snow

#2 Melted Snowman

#3 Snow Globe Writing

#4 Opposite Mittens

#5 Loco for Cocoa

#6 Painted Snowman

Alright friends, I hope you have a great night!  I'll be back next month to share some incredibly cool February ideas from some of my other PC friends.