Celebrating Culture

Despite the ch-ch-chill outside we have been warm and bright indoors at MFS!  We sent the month of February off in style with our Lunar New Year celebrations....Gung Hay Fat Choy!  (translation:  Have a prosperous New Year!)  The fun included exploring with all of our senses.....listening & dancing to Chinese music; smelling & tasting delicious foods (like dragon fruit, kumquats, green tea, long noodles and more....); feeling silk; tracing Chinese characters and admiring beautiful, Chinese art work.  The Practical Life Shelf was a busy place with lots of popular, Chinese-themed pieces of work.  The children enjoyed applying their geometry knowledge in a creative way with a Chinese Tangram art activity.  In The Chinese Teapots Lesson the children loved matching the tiny lids to the proper, ceramic teapots.  They also became quite adept at using chopsticks by practicing the Chinese Noodles work!   Celebrating special, ethnic holidays and festivals throughout the year allows us a joyful gateway into the world's cultures.   By exploring foods, music, arts and languages of the world, children are able to realize that they live on a planet full of beautiful colour and ideas!  Trying new foods or smelling new spices becomes fun and interesting thus paving the way to an open attitude toward traditions and cultures which are different from our own.  Here at The Montessori Family School we love to explore the world and its many, diverse cultures!