I’m so excited to announce that this Chinese New Year Activity Book is now live at Little Kozzi online book store. Link here. It’s so crazy to see my product available on a real store! I am so thankful for the ladies who run Little Kozzi. They are so encouraging and have helped me out so much in the past year from helping my kids learn Cantonese to also challenging myself in the materials and content I create. I am forever thankful for them.
So I have been working on this book for the past two or so months. All late night preparations after my kids go to sleep. I wanted to make sure the activties would be fun, engaging and also informative. There are so many traditions to learn about for Chinese New Year (CNY)! Even then, there are variants depending on dialect and region of China so I tried to choose the ones that were more universal or geared towards a Cantonese speaking family. There are 20 activities in the book that have been approved by my children. Please note that this is not a CNY theme activity book. We are not learning counting and shapes with CNY objects. It’s an activity book about learning the culture and the traditions, although there are some activities that require counting so feel free to reinforce or teach counting in Chinese then. You can view the preview of the book on Little Kozzi website or down below. I know when I go into stores to buy books, I skim through the pages to see what I’m getting before I buy which isn’t possible sometimes with digital products.
I am an certified elementary school teacher in Ontario. I have tried to create activities that would be inclusive for all ages and also not too demanding on the parents. I really want parents and children to do these activities together. Children will learn the traditions not only through dialogue but with actions. A common tradition is to do spring cleaning before the New Year. Have your child help find cleaning supplies through the scavenger hunt and have them help clean the house. In here there are flashcards with the cleaning verbs to help reinforce the language. As they are wiping the mirrors or sweeping, say the action words. If you’re musical (or you don’t have to be really) you can make a song out of it. I often make random songs out of nursery rhyme tunes like row row row your boat and frere jacques. There are tidbit of information throughout the book to help guide parents who may not be familiar with the traditions. I am really trying to help you out with all the preparations and information so that you can focus your time and energy with your child creating beautiful memories!
Also included for your convenience is a pre-recorded class conducted in Cantonese by Janice Chan. We have planned this class with songs and some of the CNY traditions. To access this class, there is a QR code on the second page of the book that you can scan and watch from any device.
For a limited time, until January 28, 2021, this Chinese New Year Activity Book will be on sale for $8.88 CDN. Did you see what I did there? Lucky numbers for the New Year. And what’s great about a digital product is that there are no shipping fees! That means it is available internationally since there is no shipping and it will be delivered very conveniently to your home, your device. You will be supporting a very small business, Sweet Note Learning. Did I mention this is my first product ever? I would love to create more if there is a demand for it. So please show me that you are interested in these! Link here to buy at Kozzi website: click here. Feel free to send me any feedback and questions at sweetnotelearning@gmail.com or on instagram!
UPDATE: If you purchased the CNY activity book within the first week, a second edition should have been emailed to you. There were a few simplified characters in the book. The second edition has corrected the errors.
If you have the jyutping version, the jyutping for mop is incorrect in the scavenger hunt. It should read to1 bou3 and not dei to that is in the book. I apologize for the error and will be more diligent in editing next time!
Thank you to those who have sent in questions and feedback. I am listening. Some of you had difficulty finding the class link. It’s actually on the second page in the QR code. I will definitely have to make this more clear the next time or will find an alternative method to share. I also had some request subtitles for the class because it is full immersion with Emma sweet English every now and then. I have included some subtitles for the key words in the video. Turn on subtitles in YouTube to view them. I included English, Chinese and jyutping. Hope that helps! This is Janice. She is an amazing friend of mine that offered to host these class alongside my book. She also has Cantonese immersion and bilingual classes online through zoom. You can find her in her Facebook group “Pop Up Cantonese Circle Time.”
