For the last few weeks, our libraries have been celebrating Lunar New Year, which this year fell on February 17, but is often celebrated through the Lantern Festival on March 3. We’ve been lucky enough to have a Lion Dancers come to both libraries, which has been a blast (the first one was absolutely packed!).

Since this year is the Year of the Horse, I focused my last two storytimes on a combination of horse books and songs, and books about the Lunar New Year. Here’s what we did:

Books:

Tomorrow is New Year’s Day by Aram Kim

Most of the picture books we have about the Lunar New Year are focused on the Chinese traditions surrounding the holiday. I liked that this one centered around the traditions practiced by people from Korea. It’s also relatively short, and works well for storytime. In this story, Mina can’t wait to show off her beautiful hanbok to her class, and share tteokguk, a delicious rice cake soup. But she’s embarrassed when her little brother shows up crying and complaining about his own hanbok being itchy. Luckily, the compliments of her classmates calm him down. Includes a glossary of terms (with pronunciation), and instructions on how to make an origami hanbok.The kids like joining in on the “Waaahh!” when the little brother cries.

Bringing in the New Year by Grace Lin

This is one of my favorite Lunar New Year picture books that focuses on Chinese traditions. It describes how one family celebrates the holiday by sweeping out the old year, getting haircuts, eating dumplings, and waking up the dragon. Sometimes I hand out pieces of bubble wrap (the kind that still pops) for the kids to pop when we get to the page with the firecrackers.

Clip-Clop by Nicola Smee

This simple, funny picture book works well for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. All the animals want to go for a ride with Mr. Horse, but when they complain that he’s going too fast, he skids to a stop, and they all fly into a haystack. Mr. Horse is very worried, but then they all beg to do it again. Lots of opportunities for kids to join in on the “Clippedy-Clops” (or stomp their feet), and make different animal sounds.

Horse Meets Dog by Elliott Kalan & Tim Miller

Funny story about an encounter between a horse and a dog, who are both confused about each other’s identity. The horse thinks the dog is a tiny baby horse, and tries to give him a bottle of hay. The dog thinks the horse is a very big dog, and tries to teach him to play fetch with a ball. The kids loved the part at the end, where they argue back and forth: “Tiny baby horse!” “Very big dog!” and the ending, when a bird thinks they are “two weird looking birds.”

If You Want to Ride a Horse by Amy Novesky & Gael Abary

This one is a bit too long for my Outdoor Musical Storytime crowd, but it worked well for the early elementary kids at my evening Family Storytime. It invites the reader to imagine what kind of horse they might like to have, the different ways they could ride it, and the different tools they would need to take care of it. It’s the kind of book I would have loved when I was a horse-obsessed girl.

Songs:

Ribbon Dancing

In honor of Lunar New Year, we handed out ribbon wands, and invited the kids to wave them in time to the song Gongs and Drums to Welcome New Year performed by the Taipei Municipal Chinese Classical Orchestra. This was a big hit!

Giddy-Up!

This is one of my all-time favorite baby/toddler storytime songs. It’s to the tune of the William Tell Overture (Lone Ranger Theme). For Outdoor Musical Storytime, we sang it with the parachute, shaking the chute in time to the song, and getting faster each time.

Giddy-up, Giddy-up, Giddy-UP-UP-UP! (bounce baby or toddler, or have older kids “gallop” in place)
Giddy-up, Giddy-up, Giddy-UP-UP-UP!
Giddy-up, Giddy-up, Giddy-UP-UP-UP!
WHOA, Horsey! (Lean back with baby/toddler, or have older kids stop and put their hands out)

Hop Up, My Ladies

There are lots of recordings of this traditional song, but the one by Dan Zanes is my favorite. It’s such a fun and happy song. We did it as our instrument play-along at the end.

[C] Did you ever go to meetin’, [G] Uncle [C] Joe, Uncle Joe?
Did you ever go to [G] meetin’, Uncle Joe?
Did you [C] ever go to meetin’, Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe?
Don’t [F] mind the weather [G] so the wind don’t blow.

CHORUS:

[C] Hop up, my ladies, three in a row,
Hop up, my [G] ladies, three in a row,
Hop up, my [C] ladies, three in a row,
Don’t [F] mind the weather [G] so the wind don’t blow.

Will your horse carry double, Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe…

CHORUS:

Is your horse a single-footer, Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe…

CHORUS:

Say, don’t you wanna’ gallop, Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe…

Stay & Play: Paper Dragon Puppets

A teacher friend of mine gave me a whole envelope full of wooden chopsticks and New Year envelopes (we put stickers in these, and gave them out at the end of both storytimes).

Before the storytime, I cut out the dragon head and tail from krokotak.com (for some reason, I couldn’t get the template to load when I went back to the site, but here’s a photo of it).

I also cut sheets of red paper in half lengthwise to make the bodies.

For the Stay & Play, I put out the paper templates, markers, chopsticks, the half sheets of red paper, glue sticks, and Scotch tape. I showed the kids how to fold the red paper accordion style (the adults helped the kids with this too). Then they colored their dragons, and glued the head and tail onto either end of the folded paper. We taped a chopstick at the front and the back. The kids had a great time making their dragons dance.

Do you have favorite books, songs, or crafts related to Lunar New Year or horses? Please share them in the comments below.