Nouvel an chinois

This past week I worked with the first graders. The students learned new words with the "ap" sound. The teacher also started to read the Eric Carle book Today is Monday, which incorporates days of the week and different foods. I definitely recommend that book for those reviewing days of the week and food. I introduced more food vocabulary to students and taught the students a new dialogue ("What would you like to eat?" "I would like_ please.").

On Tuesday, a couple of other assistants and I went to the Opéra national de Lorraine at Place Stanislas to see the opera Macbeth by Giuseppe Verdi. (It was very affordable- if you didn't mind the uppermost and furthest seats in the theater- 5 € for those under 26.) The opera was in Italian but with the French translation projected above the stage on a screen. I thought the production was done very well, but I'm glad I was already familiar with the story of Macbeth. It was a great first opera experience!

For those of you who don't know, today is the Nouvel an chinois (Chinese New Year). Nancy actually had a small Chinese New Year celebration yesterday. They had a dragon dance and several performances that displayed different aspects of Chinese culture. Since the event also sought to raise money for girls education in southern China, there were local vendors and organizations that sold Chinese food and other small souvenirs.

Here are some pictures of the dragon dance:

Here is a video of the guzheng performance:

Bonne Année du Serpent! Happy Year of the Snake!