I wondered, so I looked up their year on the Chinese Zodiac and guess which year all but one of my little friends was born in? The Year of the Dragon! I started coming up with a plan! Below shows how I began the process. Also, every time a dragon is mentioned in a story, they would all get very excited.
Ever since the beginning of the year, these kids have been trying to make dragons at our maker's space. As I was looking for ideas, there were a lot activities relating to the dragon and dragon dances. Transform paper plates into colorful, fun dragons. I knew that Chinese New Year was coming up so I thought to put out some invitations to explore the Chinese New Year, Chinese culture and China since they seemed to enjoy our Holidays Around the World Inquiry. From paper dragons to felt firebreathers, there are plenty of dragon arts and crafts projects to choose from. but no topic that the whole class loved together as a whole.or so I thought. We have had a lot of small group interests in sound, animals, etc. I have had a really hard time figuring out a common interest for a large scale inquiry and project with this group.
