Force kindergarteners ring in new year
Story and photos by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Feb. 11, 2010, Denver Herald-Dispatch)
Photo caption: Kindergarten student Estevan Renteri and the dragon (Melissa Valverde-McKibben) lead a parade of kindergarten students through the gym at Force Elementary School, Feb. 5. About 40 kindergarten students celebrated the Asian New Year with a parade through the school to ward off spirits.
Photo caption: Claudia Hauschild leads second grade students through classrooms. Wearing colored masks, the class joined the kindergarten classes' Asian New Year's parade through Force Elementary School.
School can be a scary place, with homework, tests and other uncertainties looming. Following Chinese tradition, at Force Elementary School on Feb. 5, about 40 kindergarteners tried to stem the tide of fearfulness. Wearing straw hats and silk vests, the kindergarteners paraded through the school to ward off evil spirits.Banging cymbals, shaking tambourines, waving hand bells and striking other bells and wooden objects together, the 4- and 5-year-olds marched through classrooms chanting “Gung Hai Fat Choy” – best wishes and congratulations for a prosperous new year.
Feb. 14 marks the start of the Year of the Tiger, and the children at Force Elementary got an early start.
Kindergarten teacher Melissa Valverde-McKibben, dressed as a black dragon with a green tail and popped-out wooden eyes, lunged through classrooms leading the procession through reading classes, math classes, art classes and physical education. Claudia Hauschild's second grade class joined the parade, the students covering their faces with paper masks on a stick that they had colored in class.
Their dance through the school on a Friday afternoon was the culmination of a three-week introduction to Asian culture. During the last part of January, students had listened to Chinese songs, colored masks and made their own dragons. Leading up to the parade, students in the school had cleaned the classrooms, a symbolic house cleaning to sweep out the old and welcome in the new year.
Following the parade, the kindergarteners ate fried rice – using wooden chop sticks instead of plastic forks. After gobbling up the chicken and egg pieces, some students snatched one or two pieces of rice between the two chop sticks before teachers allowed them to finish the brown grains by using forks.
“I like eating with the chop sticks” better than the forks, said kindergarten student Ruth Maciel. “They look like straws, but they're not.”
Maciel said her celebration wasn't finished at school.
“I'm going to do this again at my house,” she said. “I'm going to get all of my brothers to come to the house and play drums.”
See Related: Force Elementary School scorecard, from the archives
Brooke McKinney shakes a tambourine. Paraders chanted “Gung Hai Fat Choy” and made noise with myriad instruments to welcome in the new year.
Natalie Escobedo, Edwin Martinez-Torres, and Joshua Garcia in the middle of a classroom.
Daisy Bahena-Sanchez, Mailyn Lemus and Melissa Canul-Sanchez in the middle of the parade line.
Kevin Bonilla-Valenzula sticks his tongue out in hopes of eating a thin piece of chicken he had picked up with chop sticks. Following the parade, students practiced eating with Asian tools instead of forks, although they were later allowed to use plastic utensils.
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