Gong xi fa chai (early!)

This topic probably ties with Christmas as one of my favourite topics to do with children in every part of the world I've taught in! I'm going to be teaching this for the 2 weeks leading up to the celebration and using some of the following 8 suggestions (8 because its a lucky number for Chinese!)

1. See-through lanterns for the windows made using tissue paper on tracing paper.

Fun Lesson Plans

2. Teaching ordinal numbers with the help of this video from the British Council called The Great Race. There is also another helpful video on that website called 'My favourite day - Chinese New Year' if you are looking for some simple background to the festival.

3. Last year I used a craft kit to make these lanterns with the children, but this year I may need to try and make my own since my school did not order another kit!

4. The children always love a bit of Chinese calligraphy. I give them some simple Chinese characters to copy such as numbers to 10. 

5. Chinese New Year cards. No picture of this as since the Zodiac year changes each year, I have to come up with something original. This year will be the Year of the Horse, so something horse-related I guess! Look out for pictures in a future blog post.

6. Always a popular end of unit event is to have the children all dress up either in Chinese cheong-sam or simply red (a lucky colour!) and then we taste some Chinese food. Remember if you are buying one for you, long ones are for married women, knee-length for unmarried.

7. Another one for improving gross motor skills is to have them take part in some traditional ribbon dancing. I tie long (1.5m) bits of ribbon to pieces of dowling wood and have the children attempt to copy youtube videos like the one below! 

8. Flicking through Bloglovin' and found this post from Clever Classroom about books she recommends for Chinese New Year. Some of my personal recommendations would include.

Let me know if you try out any of these too and Xin Nian Kuai Le!