Celebrate Year of Tiger at children's museum on Saturday

The Northern Nevada Children's Museum will celebrate the Year of the Tiger with crafts and activities at the eighth annual Asian New Year.

This hands-on, visual day takes place 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and offers an interactive experience for children and parents.

"I call what we do here 'edu-tainment,' a combination of education and entertainment," said Jim Peckham, museum director. "Our Asian New Year celebration is an opportunity for families to learn about another culture and it's a great time and way to enjoy the museum."

With many local families - including Peckham's - having adopted children from China and other Asian countries, observances of this kind are also a "great opportunity to share their culture with classmates and preserve heritage," Peckham said.

"We celebrate Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick's Day, and given that more than half the world's population celebrates Chinese New Year, and Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world, it's important to observe this as well."

This year's observance has been scaled back to one day, because of the economy, but still will be packed with arts and crafts, demonstrations, music and dance.

Learn the basics of calligraphy, how to eat with chopsticks, origami paper folding and Chinese jump rope. There also will be opportunities to make tiger masks and paper lanterns. Artist Caroline Young will demonstrate Japanese brush painting.

The festivities include the Lion Dance ceremony at 10:30 a.m. and The Little Swan Dancers of Reno perform from 1-2 p.m.

The days' activities and events are included in the regular price of admission, $5 for adults, $3 for children and free to those with annual membership.

The Children's Museum of Northern Nevada is located at 813 N. Carson St. For more information, visit cmnn.org or call 884-4669 or 884-2226.