4 Fantastic Chinese New Year Classroom Activities

Chinese New Year (16th February 2018) is a fantastic opportunity for students to explore other cultures and traditional celebrations. 

The Australian History Curriculum encourages the exploration of other cultural celebrations:

Foundation Year

How they, their family and friends commemorate past events that are important to them.

Year 1

How the present, past and future are signified by terms indicating time, as well as by dates and changes that may have personal significance, such as birthdays, celebrations and seasons.

Year 3

Days and weeks celebrated in Australia...and celebrations and commemorations in places around the world such as Chinese New Year.

There are some easy ways to bring this celebration into your classroom, to not only keep your classroom inclusive, but there is nothing nicer than bringing that HASS curriculum to life in a fun engaging way. History is not boring folks!

One: Make Chinese hanging lanterns

These are so easy to make. You can find the template in my Chinese New Year pack or watch the directions in this video. Once they are strung together across the classroom they look fantastic!

Two: Make Money Envelopes

Again, super easy to make and the students love them. You can discuss the significance of the red envelopes and how much money is usually given by visiting this website. I have used the envelope template inside Chinese New Year pack but you can use regular envelopes and colour them red. Obviously your students can't place money inside them but they can make some money (either Australian dollars or use Chinese currency on them if you'd like to explore that). You can also integrate these into maths rotations if you want to take the experience further in your classroom!

Three: Chinese New Year symbolism posters

Students love to colour and teachers love a colouring activity that has meaning, so incorporate both with this free Chinese New Year Colour Page. You can use this website to explore the symbolism and the meaning with students or you'll find the Chinese New Year flip book a useful tool for taking students through the celebration in more detail.

Four: Chinese Dragon Art Work activity

Explore the use of warm and cool colours in this simple but effective colouring activity. Show students how to colour the image in warm colours and the outside in cool colours. Once it is complete these make fantastic wall displays in the classroom or around windows.

Learning about China can be so much fun! If you have students with Chinese connections, why not ask them to bring an item from China in for a show and tell or better still, bring some Chinese food in to share! Most students and parents are so excited to share an aspect of their culture with their school friends and it makes for an exciting History lesson as well!