CUXX-4

CU PKK K-1:3 Other cultures celebrate New Year Goal: Students will compare the Jewish New Year celebration with the way other people and cultures welcome a new year. Materials – clock, noisemaker, loaf of bread, book **//__The Lion Dancer__//**, crayons drawing paper 1. ** Gain attention of the learner ** Bring the following materials to class, a clock, a noisemaker, and a loaf of bread. Ask students to talk about these objects and remark how, where and when they are used. 2. ** Review relevant past learning ** Secular Jews welcome the holiday together by sharing their wishes for a good year. Ask your students to describe what things they did or intend to do to help make the year sweet for their families. 3. ** Present new material ** Every culture has unique traditions to celebrate a new year. In England, guests bring coal and a loaf of bread. The coal represents a wish that the people in the home will have a warm home and the bread so that the people in the home will have a home filled with food. Americans begin New Year festivities in January by counting down the clock until midnight and blowing horns. The blowing of loud horns comes from a time when people believed in evil spirits and thought that the noise would scare away evil spirits. People with Chinese ancestors mark their new year by lighting many firecrackers and dancing with a large dragon puppet possibly for similar reasons. 4. ** Provide guided practice ** Read the story Lion Dancer to the class. Ask the children to describe how the Wong family welcomes the New Year. How many traditions in Wong family can the students identify with things they do in their family? 5. ** Provide independent practice: ** The Wong family’s dragon dance is a way to show happiness. Ask students to think about how a person would dance if they felt happy. Ask each student to demonstrate a different step one at a time. After each person shows his/her dance have the other children copy the step. 6. ** Close the lesson: ** Make dragon masks or shofar kazoos. Put all the steps together and dance around the room together with the masks or kazoos.
 * http://augustachronicle.com/stories/010197/caviar.html http://wilstar.com/holidays/newyear.htm **