Chinese New Year Small World Play

One of the joys of belonging to a mixed race family is you get to celebrate everything!  Chinese New Year is a welcomed festivity in our home.  It's celebrated about a month after Christmas, during what I used to call "the depressing months of winter" when I lived in the UK.  At this time of year, the shopping malls are decked in reds, pinks and golds and little red "angpow" packets (of money) are distributed to the younger members of the family.

This year I wanted to introduce Wugs to the story behind the celebration.  It seems there are many variations of it, so I went with the one that I could get my hands on in picture-book format.  "The Great Race, The Story of the Chinese Zodiac", by Dawn Casey tells the story of the Jade Emperor using a race across a river to determine the order and names of the calendar months. The book (like all Barefoot Books) is well-written with beautiful vibrant illustrations.  After reading this book almost every night for the last two weeks, I created a Chinese New Year small world play.

Part of the small world play involved a number-matching game which I made using stickers with numbers 1-12 written on them and I placed them on the base of each animal according to the order in which they came in the race.  Then I created some foam circles and placed them on the opposite side of the river for Wugs to match the animals with.  (He could check underneath the animals if he couldn't remember from the story).

Outside the tub I added a treat which I placed in the red angpow packet.  The treat was 3 crispy almond wafers, called "Love Letters" which are rolled in the shape of a scroll.  They are delicious and very popular at this time of year.

What we used:
Green and brown playdough
Dyed blue rice
Wooden peg doll (for the Jade Emperor)
Green, red and black felt (for the Jade Emperor's clothing)
Black thread
Coloured felt-tip pens
White foam paper
Black marker pen
Small plastic animal figurines (Safari Ltd)
Plastic flowers
Angpow packet
"Love Letters"
Scoops