Coming from a mixed cultural background, I want to expose our daughter to her heritage. Yes, she's Canadian, but she's also got Filipino, Spanish, Chinese, Caribbean, Scottish, and English roots.  With Chinese New Year just around the corner, I would like to celebrate! I've been coming up with some Chinese New Year activities for kids.

Since it's the Year of the Snake, here's an adorable and easy craft to do with the kids.

For details on how to make your own Chinese New Year Snake craft, visit the Craftiments blog.

Last year, for our very first Chinese New Year celebration on "the Island", my friend made gluten-free fortune cookies with her daughter. They were amazing! I found a basic fortune cookie recipe online that I may give a try.

Apart from each guest bringing one Chinese New Year dish, we're also going to be lighting Chinese lanterns and having the kids release them into the night sky! I found these great photos on the Lido Gallery site and some info on the symbolism of the lanterns.

 Buddhists believe the sky lanterns are symbolic of your problems and worries floating away. They are offered to temples and monks in return for enlightenment, as the flame of the lantern symbolizes wisdom. The lantern’s light shows them to the ‘right path’.

During the Yuan Dynasty in the 13^th century, Chinese Lanterns became a symbol of hope and good wishes.  Citizens used them to bless their crops and to pray for what they needed. The belief was the sky lantern would float up to the heavens to be closer to the god’s ears.  The more lanterns used, the greater chance their wishes and prayers would come true. Today during the Chinese New Year, millions of sky lanterns are released over a two week period with a wish for good luck and prosperity in the coming year.

I hope you enjoy these Chinese New Year Activities for kids!

Will you be celebrating Chinese New Year with your family this year?

At our home, we love science experiments!  I'm not talking about making penicillin/growing mold by leaving food in the fridge for too long (although I'm embarrassed to say that may or may not have happened in this house before)!  I'm talking about learning about why things are the way they are or how to create or manipulate matter. We love hands on experiments!

Kids learn by doing, so why not make it fun?!

One of my friends teaches in public school and she has got to be one of the coolest teachers around! I'd LOVE to be a student in her class. She always has lots of fun experiments to do with kids. When we have play dates with our kids, we always have fun projects for our 3, 4, and 5 year olds to do. For example, making our own polymer (aka: Goop!), making stained-glass with wax paper and melted crayons, and baking gluten-free cookies.

Recently, we grew our own crystals!

How cool is that?

MATERIALS NEEDED:

• string
• wide mouth pint jar 
•  pipe cleaners (we used sparkly, shiny ones)
• Borax 
• pencil, stick or BBQ skewer
• boiling water
• scissors

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. To make borax crystal snowflakes we need to first make the snowflake shapes with the pipe cleaners. Cut a pipe cleaner into three equal sections. You need to then twist the sections together at their centers, forming a six-sided snowflake shape. It doesn't have to be even because you can cut and trim the sides. Because our kids are so young, my friend and I did this step for them. Make sure the snowflake can fit inside the jar.
2. Next, tie the string to the end of one of the snowflake 'arms'. Then, tie the other end of the string to the pencil, stick, skewer. Make sure the length is so that the pencil hangs the snowflake into the jar. Not touching the bottom of the jar, but enough that the snowflake is fully immersed in the solution.
3. ADULTS, this is where you need to come in. Fill the wide mouth pint jar with boiling water. 
4. Now, add  one tablespoon of  borax at a time to the boiling water. Stir to dissolve after each addition of borax. The quantity: 3 tablespoons of borax per cup of water. 
5. Hang the pipe cleaner snowflake in the jar. Rest the pencil, stick, or BBQ skewer on top of the jar.  Make sure the snowflake is completely covered with liquid solution. Ensure that it hangs freely and doesn't touch the bottom or sides of the jar. If doing more than one experiment at a time, make sure none of the snowflakes are touching.
6. Let sit undisturbed overnight.
7. Presto! As my four year old will tell you, "It's like magic, but it's science!" You can now admire all the pretty crystals and hang your snowflake as a decoration or in a window to catch the sunlight. We're using ours as Christmas tree ornaments!

Looks like some kind of wacky science experiment, doesn't it? The water turned pink because of the purple pipe cleaners. We used some sparkly silver, blue, and purple pipe cleaners just to see what the effect would be. You can use regular pipe cleaners, but the sparkly ones really do add to effect and make the crystals look even more brilliant!

Important Notes

1. Borax is available at most grocery stores in the laundry detergent aisle. The one that is readily available in our local grocery stores is the 20 Mule Team Borax Laundry Booster.
2. Parents and adults required to not only supervise, but assist with this experiment. Boiling water is used and Borax is not meant to be eaten. Please make sure that there is an adult to supervise!
3. If you don't have Borax, you can also use sugar or salt. It may take longer to grow the crystals without the Borax, so be patient. Add sugar or salt to the boiling water until it stops dissolving. Ideally you want no crystals at the bottom of the jar.

These are so beautiful! My four year old was AMAZED to see the crystals form right before her eyes! We left the solution and the pipe cleaners overnight and within a short time we saw crystallization begin. By morning, the crystals were bigger and fuller. Truly amazing!  

The crystal snowflakes and stars make gorgeous decorations for the holidays! Try it! I'm sure your kids will love doing this fun "science experiment".

I'll be the first to admit that I always seem to have too much on my plate. I somehow always put myself in positions where I get "voluntold" to do things. I have issues with being able to say NO to people.  I'm also the kind of person who sees things through to the end if I've given my word. As a result, I can often be found running around like a crazy person, trying to get everything done.  If my head weren't attached to the rest of me, I wouldn't know where to find it!

 Since Little One and I spent Valentine's Day en route back to the Island after a lovely mini vacation with my brother and his family, we made our Valentine's craft today.  She really wanted to make Valentine's hearts, and she loves making art work for her windows in her bedroom.  We ended up making "stained glass" art with wax crayon shavings and wax paper.
 For this craft, you will need:

• Crayons (great way to use up old or broken crayons)
• Wax paper
• scissors
• string
• toothpick
• tape
• towel
• hair dryer (you can use an iron, but the thought of a hot iron and my three year old daughter being anywhere near it just makes me really, REALLY nervous)

1. On a sheet of wax paper, shave wax crayons with scissors. I used assorted shades of blues and some white for mine. Little One used pinks, oranges, reds, and a few other colours.

2. Place towel under wax paper and fold wax paper in half.

3. With the hair dryer, heat wax paper and crayons until the shavings are all melted and the wax paper melts (so that it seals).

4. With your scissors, cut in desired shapes. We made hearts because...Well, it's Valentine's Day!

5. With a toothpick, carefully prick a hole through the wax paper.  Run your string through the hole, et voila! Now you can hang your stained glass art!


 The finished product:


 Here's another window art craft we did a few weeks ago.

My friend came up with this craft idea for our play date.  It was supposed to be "snowflake art", but with 2, 3, and 4 year old children, it turned into "big globs of colour art"!

You will need:

• white glue
• dish soap 
• food colouring
• transparency sheets or plastic sheet protectors
• bottles with nozzles that the kids can squeeze the glue/soap/food colouring mixture from

1. Put white glue into squeezable blottles and add a drop or two of dishsoap.
2. Mix food colouring into the glue/soap mixture.
3. On a plastic transparency sheet/page protector, let children make their designs with the glue. For older kids, you could place the clear sheet over an image from a colouring book and they can trace it. We were going to make snowflakes, but the kids had other things in mind. The big globs of colour were kind of neat and creative!
 4. Let dry overnight or longer. When the glue is completely dry, it will change colour.
 5. Peel the stained glass art off of the clear plastic sheet and place shiny side onto glass window.

 View from Little One's room. Can you tell she loves decorating her windows?  The great thing is that all of these can be easily removed from your glass windows. They are not permanent! :)
There you go! A fun and easy craft you can do with your children!

Some friends and I get together on occasion and have play dates.  Our children are all in the same age group (and mostly girls!). We sometimes let the kids just play, but most of the time we have an organized activity.  My friend, The Carpenter's Wife came up with a really great craft that was age appropriate for our kids. We made homemade bird feeders. 

Little One was really into it.  Like most three year olds, she loves getting her hands dirty and is fascinated by different textures.
Materials needed:

• Twine 
• Peanut butter (because of nut allergies, my friend used lard instead)
• oats
• millet
• bird feed
• pine cones
• trays (for the kids to put their pine cones and feed on)
• scissors (to cut the twine)

Assembly:

1.  Cut a piece of twine long enough to tie around pine cone and have enough to tie onto a branch of a tree. I'm guessing about a foot.
2. Tie one end of twine around the top of pine cone. I tied Little One's about a quarter of the way down.
3. Have the kids help mix the lard (use suet or peanut butter if you wish) with the millet and oats in a large bowl. This will be the sticky binding for the bird feeder.
4. Let each child fill the lard/oat/millet mixture into the crevices of their pine cones. They should have the pine cone completely covered with a thick later of the sticky mixture.
5. Now for the fun part! Let the kids roll their pine cones in bird feed! 

We set the bird feeders aside and let the kids play outside.  After lunch, the kids all needed their rest.  They were all played out!
When we brought our bird feeders home, they were already firmed up and ready to hang on our birch tree in front of our house.

Fun, educational, and it kept the kids busy and happy!