In 2014, my children and I created a shadow puppet performance called The Great Race, telling the traditional story of how the animals were chosen for the Chinese lunar calendar.

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At the time, Mona was nine, Jackson and Georgia were seven, and Louis, who was five, joined us as an audience member. This project grew out of our practice of marking the cycles of the year, a rhythm I followed throughout our homeschooling years and continue to follow today. Seasonal holidays were opportunities to deepen learning through story, art, food, and shared experience.

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Our storytelling was inspired by the book The Great Race: The Story of the Chinese Zodiac, written by Dawn Casey and illustrated by Anne Wilson. We traced animal shapes to create our puppets, then cut them out and mounted them onto popsicle sticks. We also made an emperor figure, background elements such as river waves and land, and decorated the performance space with handmade paper lanterns.

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Shadow puppetry has a long history in China and has traditionally been used to tell stories and pass down cultural knowledge. Exploring this medium allowed us to engage with the story of the zodiac through both visual art and performance.

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The puppet show was presented to an audience of family as part of a larger Chinese New Year celebration. Alongside the performance, we shared Chinese food, read related stories, and created cork horses in recognition of the Year of the Horse. While we never repeated this particular performance, Chinese New Year has remained a holiday we continue to acknowledge and celebrate.

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This video is shared here as part of my Learning Library, not as a formal curriculum, but as a learning story — an example of how art, storytelling, and cultural exploration can come together in a lived, meaningful way.