Chinese New Year at preschool!

As we were getting ready to celebrate Chinese New Year at preschool, Ricky goes "When is Africa? I Africa, no China." hahahahaha. Don't worry, Ricky- we'll get more involved in Ethiopian events this year... Anyway!
Xin nian kaui le! (Happy New Year!) We first read a book by Karen Katz called "My First Chinese New Year." Before reading it, I handed out props for the kids to hold. When we reached their part in the story they got to stand up and show their prop (Chinese lanterns, fireworks, red envelopes, drums, plum blossoms, new clothes, a Chinese dragon, and a broom for cleaning, etc). This is a class of squirmy 3 year olds, so they appreciated a hands on activity with some moving around.
After reading the book, the kids got to have their names written in Chinese characters by the mom of one of the students. Then we painted quince/plum blossoms:

Here are the kids with some of the props:

For snack, I ordered chopstick helpers on-line, and bought panda bear cookies. The kids were *awesome* with the chopsticks!!!

This was sort-of my practice run, before I do a similar lesson with the kindergarteners! I'm a little nervous to do the bigger kids because about half the class is actually Chinese, and I hope I don't say anything inaccurate!