Featured maker: We present this craft video tutorial by THENCE Team member Nikita Lai Jing Tse. She styled, directed and filmed the making of this 3-Dimensional character for the Chinese words “Chun” in Mandarin meaning “Spring”, which is also pronounced “Cheung” in the Cantonese dialect of Chinese.

World language learning: You can hear the Cantonese pronunciation of the word by Angel Chan, in the beginning of the video. She joined us from the city of Hong Kong to help convey the ancient and contemporary meanings of the word “Spring”. More on that in moment. First some background.

Choose from three other Spring Festival crafts

Cultural Notes: The Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival is celebrated in many countries including China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Singapore, to name only a few. You can read about the trend of increasing official recognition of the Spring Festival in the United States and Cities across the US here at our parent website THENCE.us

School holidays: If you live in the state of California, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, or the city of Boston, your school probably has a day off during the week when the Lunar New Year arrives, to acknowledge and respect this Festival.

Teachers Notes: If you know a lot or a just a little, about the Lunar New Year, this craft is a great way to connect to the holiday, and also to connect your students’ social growth goals, and community awareness, as well as the deeper cultural meaning of this and other important celebrations.

Don’t miss: The interactive how-to. Every craft video has an interactive portion to best learn why the character of “Cheung” links to concepts of growth, renewal, blossoming and the anticipation of positive personal and family outcomes for the year to come. These concepts are all vital social and emotional learning growth and development, personal skills of concentration, learning from peers, dexterity and other processes that teachers can weave into the activity of making this craft with your students.