Gung Hay Fat Choy! The children in the Stepping Stones School’s Transitional Kindergarten class learned about Lunar New Year traditions and how people celebrate. Students learned how to use monkey drums and marched to festive music. They created scratch-art dragons and paper lanterns during art class, and incorporated the 12 Chinese zodiac animals into their weekly yoga class. On January 27, the children wore red and celebrated with a special lunch, including chicken lo mein, vegetable fried rice, almond cookies, Pocky, and oranges. They ended the day doing a dragon dance, in which they held a 12-foot plastic dragon decoration above their heads as they marched around the school. All the children went home with a goodie bag of red envelopes, fortune cookies and oranges.

The Arc of Essex County’s Stepping Stones School is a Department of Education approved private school for students with disabilities serving children ages 3-10.  Located in Roseland, NJ, the school is designed to meet the developmental and educational needs of children with cognitive impairments such as Down syndrome and other students with similar educational and developmental needs.  For more information, or to request a virtual tour and assistance with an out-of-district placement, contact Sue Brand, Director of Early Childhood and Education at (862) 210-8781 or sbrand@arcessex.org.