Four PDFs
KS1, KS2
Years 1-6
Chinese New Year is a wonderful event for inspiring creative lesson activities for the kids in your class. You’ll also get a great opportunity to explore influences from another culture with your children.
This download contains the following four Chinese New Year activity ideas for kids:
Dragon dancing
Combine art, dance and music to create dragon costumes and perform a dragon dance as a class.
This whole-class craft, dance and music activity is a fantastic way to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Many Chinese people see the dragon as a sacred creature and show great respect towards it.
For them, it symbolises many qualities, including power, courage and dignity. The dragon dance is performed on big occasions, and especially at Chinese New Year.
Great Wall of China
Take your class on a ‘wall walk’ around school, documenting all the walls you find, then build your own from your chosen materials.
Offer them a variety of different construction materials: boxes, foam and wooden blocks, clay, buckets, empty food packaging, air bricks, sand, stones, mud, blocks of wood, etc.
Once the walls are completed, test them to see which is tallest, and which is strongest. Identify what makes a good construction, that will stand the test of time.
Inventive China
Learn all about the Chinese invention of kites and make your own from plastic bags and BBQ skewers.
China has been the source of many important inventions, including papermaking, printing and the compass. The kite was also originally invented in China.
Animals of China
Research giant pandas and create fact files about these splendid creatures. Include information about where they live, what they eat, their habitat, and so on.
If you have access to some ‘live’ bamboo, bring it into class so that the children can see what it looks like.
Sue Cowley is an educational author, trainer and presenter. For more information, visit suecowley.co.uk. Explore more Chinese New Year KS1 and KS2 activities.
