Chinese New Year Unit Study

I don't know about you, but I love when there is a holiday!  So many ways to make school fun and interesting when there is a special day of celebration.  Monday will be Chinese New Year and we have a few fun activities planned. 

Reading this book will be a great starting point:

 It has so many interesting bits of information about the holiday and explanations of each custom.

Then, because it is also Math Fun Monday, we will read this:

Yes, it is actually set in India, but it is all about rice.  We will use a graph to graph the amounts of rice the main character accumulates throughout the story, and then predict how much will be accumulated at the end. 

There are some fun Chinese New Year lesson plans here:
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/activity/china-global-trek-activity

We will study all things China- pandas, art and architecture, government and more.

Making Chinese yo-yo's from here:
http://www.makingfriends.com/yoyo.htm

And if I am feeling froggy...we will attempt a dragon puppet from here: http://www.thatartistwoman.org/2009/01/how-to-make-chinese-dragon-puppet.html

And of course we will feast on some Chinese food courtesy of our favorite local Chinese restaurant.

What about you?  Any special plans for Chinese New Year?