Ringing in the Year of the Pig, Silly Bean Style

Silly Bean is a multiracial little guy- Cantonese from my side, and British, Irish, and French from Kevin's side. We want him to grow up knowing who he is and how he was created, and so holidays are an entryway into teaching him about his cultures. Now while he is so young, it's more about awareness about what particular people groups do/eat/celebrate than about teaching him about ethnicity or differences among them. These past few days, we've been learning about Chinese New Year (in addition to receiving red envelopes from family members).

Silly Bean loves picture books, but they need to have pictures that are appealing to him, and contain some words but not too many. Here are some of the books we've been looking at that he has enjoyed "reading" and learning from:

In particular, Grace Lin's Bringing in the New Year (and all of Grace Lin's books for that matter) was a big hit with Silly Bean. I think he remembered the lanterns from the other book we read by her about the Midautumn Festival, so we created some mini lanterns out of red envelopes that he enjoyed holding in his hand and helping to put up on the door. 

One of the other joys of Silly Bean being 17 months old is the new discovery and fascination with eating--Silly Bean learning how to eat, being introduced to new foods, and for me, cooking healthy foods that he might like and seeing how he reacts. It was really fun to make these dumplings while Silly Bean watched (and tried to help), just like we saw in Grace Lin's book about the new year.  Though Silly Bean only liked the dumpling skins sans filling this time around, I hope this will become one of our yearly traditions!

新年快樂 from our family to yours!

What traditions/holidays do you celebrate with your little one to teach them about who they are?