Notes for Parents

You may care more about sharing Chinese heritage and Chinese New Year information than anyone else involved with your child's class -- but you might not know the most, and either way there may be other parents who are interested in joining with you. It is might be better in the long run if you talk to some other parents before going ahead and deciding "everything". I have found that the parent who knows the most, or who has the best ideas may not have the time, temperament, or confidence in their language skills to present to a class.

Work together. Build a community.

I like to read a bit more about any topic - so I am more likely to have an answer to questions that might come up. That's why I try to include extra references to books and other websites throughout so that you can do the same.

Abacus example: While I doubt I will ever help children make an abacus out of O-shaped cereal, if I did I would want to practice using an abacus, read about abacus math, and learn the difference between a Chinese and Japanese abacus before I went into the classroom. If you go that route, you may want to skim something like these abacus pages:

Abacus Museum
PBS's mathline on abacus

(I could see having them make one out of beads instead of cereal.)

Last updated: January 2009