Chinese/ Lunar New Year Toddler Play

Little Miss is 19 months old now and incredibly curious and full of action. During nap time today I assembled a few basic pieces for a Lunar New Year inspired play. She is slow to wake up from naps, but having the set up ready to go got her moving just a little bit faster!

Drawing on the colours of Lunar New Year (red and gold), we have a pom pom scooping activity for today. Little Miss loves scooping and transferring at the moment so this held her interest for quite a while! Red and gold are considered lucky. Red is the colour of happiness and good fortune, gold symbolizes wealth and prosperity.

Today we have a large (battered) wooden bowl, filled with pom poms of various sizes (some glittery, some plain), wool felt balls and jingle bells all in shades of red and gold. I also added some clothes pegs (in red and yellow), bamboo toast tongs, small wooden cups, egg cups and bowls, and a small gold cup (possibly a shot pourer?). Most equipment was sourced from the op shop over time.

Little Miss loved scooping, and practised using the tongs (she is determined to master them at the moment). She asked for spoons, so we added some wooden spoons and scoops to the mix later on. We took turns clipping the pegs to the side of the bowl, and pulling them off again. She loved running her hands through the various textures and transferred the pom poms from one bowl to another. We stacked containers and tipped pom poms on the floor. It was great fun!

She is now old enough to help tidy up and at the end she helped pick up a few items from the floor. She is getting better and better at this... super proud!

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