Chinese New Year

I love chinese new year – it is a great opportunity to look at another culture.  Here are a few of the ideas and resources that I am planning to use as we celebrate Chinese new year.

The Great Race 

I love the story of the great race.  This year I will use it as a sequencing exercise for the children.  Can they recall the order that the animals all finish the race?

Last year I made these symbols for the children to cut out and reorder.  As an exercise of ordinal numbers I have also included numbers, positional numbers and words.

You can download this file for free – Chinese new year sequencing activity.

  I love this book – I have used it to teach about the animals of the chinese zodiac to 3 through to 7 year olds.  The Great Race buy it at amazon #affiliate 

Twinkl also has some great activities and sequencing for chinese new year – get your laminating pouches ready!

This is also the ideal opportunity for children to recreate the story  – I love these puppets from amazon.

 Malloom® 12Pcs Chinese Zodiac Soft Animal Puppet Finger Toys

Maths and money

Following the chinese tradition of red envelopes I plan to teach a problem solving lesson for maths. 

First I am going to get the children to all make a red envelope – I love this template from twinkl – Chinese Red Envelope.

I will then set them a problem.  This envelope contains 15p – how many different ways could the envelope contain this money.  The children will then need to record all of the coin options to make 15p. 

This could then be extended for deeper learning – Ie this envelope contains 3 coins – what is the maximum value it could be?  What is the minimum value it could be?

Hmm  – I feel a worksheet coming…

Fine Motor

What an ideal time to practice using chopsticks to transfer objects  – I have used some of these lucky chinese coins.

Chinese lanterns

These chinese lanterns are really beautiful and really simple to make – see how Freya and Seb did it in my Chinese lantern blog post.

 Books

I always love to have a variety of books around a subject – here are some of the best ones I have found for Chinese New Year.

 Usbourne beginners book all about China. I love these Usbourne beginners books as they have simple language so children can read them themselves.  Find out about lots of different aspects of China.  China (Usborne Beginners) Buy it from amazon #affiliate

  A lovely book where children get to see how children celebrate the Chinese New year in China.  Dragon Dance: A Chinese New Year Ltf: A Chinese New Year Lift-The-Flap Book (Lift-The-Flap, Puffin) buy it at amazon #affiliate

  Another lovely book that tells of traditional Chinese New year. Lanterns and Firecrackers: A Chinese New Year Story (Festival Time)buy it at amazon #affiliate

  I love this book.  It shows how every child is unique and has different skills. Ling Sung is new at school and can’t do the things the other children can do.  He feels sad until he realises he is the only on that can use chopsticks.  Such a great lesson for PSHE  Cleversticks (Picture Lions) buy it at amazon #affiliate  

  I love this book – I have used it to teach about the animals of the chinese zodiac to 3 through to 7 year olds.  The Great Race buy it at amazon #affiliate 

 Another beautiful book by Julia Donaldson – how will the artist match the power of the Emperor? The Magic Paintbrush buy it at amazon #affiliate  

  A beautifully illustrated book about willow pattern The Willow Pattern Story (A North-South Paperback) buy it at amazon #affiliate

  The Runaway Wok: A Chinese New Year Tale

 I hope this post helps – I have lots more ideas I would like to try to do including a paper plate chinese dragon!!  Hopefully I will blog about it too soon!  See Chinese New Year Pinterest board.