Chinese New Year is a major holiday where we celebrate with friends and family and pay respect to our ancestors.

Chinese New Year is on the first day of the first month of the Lunar Calendar. The lunar calendar is made up of 12 lunar months which is calculated by how long the moon takes to go around the earth. Chinese New Year usually falls in late January or in February. This differs from the Western calendar which we celebrate in the US. This year Chinese New Year falls on January 28th.

On Chinese New Year, we do a lot of traditions to get good luck. One tradition is to burn Chinese paper money for our ancestors.  Another tradition is to clean your house. You always want to enter the New Year with a clean house, so clean up today! But don’t sweep tomorrow, because you’ll be sweeping away your luck! On New Year’s Day, you should eat fish and noodles. Fish represents prosperity and noodles represents long life. Elders will also give lucky money in a red envelope. When you get a red envelope, you say “Gong Xi Fa Cai” This means, “congratulations and be rich”. You will also want to wear red. Red symbolizes fire, which according to legend can drive away bad luck.

Each year is represented by 12 zodiac animals. The 12 zodiac animals are rat, oz, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Tomorrow starts the year of the rooster. We are currently in the year of the monkey.

I’m the year of the rat. If you were born in 2008, you would also be the year of the rat. If you were born in 2007 you would be the year of the pig.

One way kids can save water is by using water from the faucet less when washing hands. You should first wet our hands, then turn off the faucet, and then rinse the soap off. “Turn off the water and make sure it is off completely.”

I also think that you should also use less water when you brush your teeth. “Turn on the faucet to get our toothbrush and toothpaste wet .” You shouldn’t  leave the faucet on when you are brushing.

You should take short showers instead of baths. Baths use 37 gallons of water on average. “ Take short showers and use only about 20 gallons of water, instead.”

Finally, you can put barrels outdoors to collect water. You can put a barrels outside for catching rain. “You can use that water for  things like watering plants or flushing toilets.”

In conclusion, kids can save water just like adults can.

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By Ron Roy

In my opinion, Operation Orca was one of the best books I ever read. For instance, my favorite part of the book was when the crook got caught taking the baby orca. I learned that the crook took the baby orca for a reason. That reason was to lure his son and wife to come home to him. Next, I felt like all the characters came to life. The main characters are Josh, Dink, and Ruth Rose. I felt like I was with the main characters and was a detective, too. Finally, I liked the book because of its happy ending, awesome characters, and it felt like real life. I got hooked and wanted to keep on reading, especially when they found the missing orca. In closing, I think Operation Orca was a very awesome book.