Chinese New Year is a great holiday to teach kids about and celebrate. If you need some help coming up with activities and crafts for kids for the Chinese New Year, I have some ideas that might help you.
First, let’s review the history of the Chinese New Year and its traditions. The Chinese New Year is celebrated in accordance to the lunar calendar. This means it is not on a fixed day, however it generally falls at the end of January or beginning of February. The lunar calendar is based on how long it takes for the moon to go around the Earth. According to the Chinese calendar it takes 60 years and five cycles consisting of 12 years each for a complete cycle. This calendar dates back to 2600 B.C.
To celebrate, the Chinese spend the night before the New Year cleaning and having a reunion dinner. There is no sweeping allowed on the first day of the Chinese new year because it is believed that you would be sweeping out all of your good luck if you did.
On the first day of the Chinese new year, no foul language or words that are thought to be unlucky can be used. Everyone wears new clothes and new shoes. And they eat all sorts of cookies and mandarin oranges. Mandarin oranges represent prosperity. Mandarin oranges are also delicious and healthy so consider bringing them in and serving them as a snack in your classroom.
Another, favorite past time to do during the Chinese New Year celebration (which lasts 15 days) is to play card games.
I found a great memory card game that you can print off and laminate. You can find this game at DLTK. You can either print off a black and white version and color yourself, or have the kids color it for you, or you can print off a color version and have it ready to go.
Another great craft that you can do with your kids is to make a paper bag puppet. All you need is a brown paper lunch sack, crayons or markers, construction paper and some glue. You will want to find out which zodiac symbol the new year is and then make a puppet to represent that year. For instance, 2010 is the year of the tiger. Draw black stripes on the paper bag. Cut out triangles for the ears and glue to the top of the puppet. Draw eyes and a nose on the bottom of the paper sack. When the child puts his hand in the paper bag they can make the tiger “talk” by opening and closing the bottom part of the paper bag at the fold with their hand inside.
You can also make a fireworks display for the Chinese New Year, as fireworks are a big element in the celebrations. To make this display you will need a large piece of black paper, glue, glitter and a straw. Have the kids gather around the paper. Show them to put a “blob” of white glue on the black paper. Then use a straw to blow air at the blob of glue and watch the glue splatter out from the center of the blob (children love this). Then after you have made a few blobs, pour or shake glitter onto the glue splatters. Allow to completely dry. Since most of the fireworks will be around the edge of the paper, you will have room in the middle to write Happy New Year or something similar and then display.
For fun printable writing practices to go along with your Chinese New Years lesson plan consider this word search, scrambled letter exercise, or fill in the missing letters.
For more crafts please check out Kaboose.com and Activity Village.
