During the Lunar New Year lanterns provide illumination, are said to be lucky charms, and a wish for the bright future. Lunar New Year, which includes many Asian Countries, is filled with festivities, customs, and plenty of feasts where the arrival of spring and the start of a fresh year is based. After looking at real images of lanterns from around the world we invited the children to paint and decorate lanterns for our upcoming annual Lunar New Year Parade this week. We provided white lanterns as their canvas, Colorations Liquid WaterColors, Twisty Droppers, and gold stickers.
All aspects of this process, from painting on different media (3-D Object) to trying to manage the movement of the lantern, exploring gravity as they see colors dripping downward, while using their fine motor skills with the droppers and peeling the stickers, enhances and challenges a child‘s way of thinking creatively. Every time we provide children with the opportunity to create art all on their own and in a variety of ways, we are reminded of how engaging and important process art is. Art gives the child an opportunity to be completely immersed in the process of creating in a unique way!
The beauty of learning about celebrating different cultures is that it can help children understand, respect similarities and differences, and they understand who they are in context of race, ethnic group, culture, religion, language and familial history. It also provides children with meaningful worldly information and can introduce concepts from anthropology, history, religion, geography, etc. Whether it is celebrating the art, music, food, symbols, traditions, and so on of a culture, exposing children to different elements of a culture provides more knowledge and understanding of the world while making every child feel seen and heard in their community.
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