The lunar year or Chinese New Year, for 2023 is on February 16. Every year this celebration is celebrated by so many people that it is a must to introduce this to your student. This celebration lends itself very well to making lots of crafts and storytelling. There are so many activities you could do but below are my top 5 Lunar New Year activities for kindergarten.
Lantern patterns are the most fun activity for preschoolers. Draw with a zebra marker the outline of the lantern with 6 layers. Next students will create their own pattern and finally they will colour it with water paint. Students copy the lantern or download the template here. Be aware that if you don’t use a zebra marker that the regular makers will blend into the water-colours. Thats why I love to use a zebra market as it makes the outlines very clear.
Read the book Book Ruby’s Chinese New Year . Next kids will investigate their own zodiac animal. Find out what year your students were born and what animal goes with it. Students will make an I was born in the year …….. students will copy or trace this sentence. They can look at the display cards to determine what they were born in the zodiac chart.
Next they can draw the animal with a zebra market and then color with water paint . Print the animals of the zodiac or you can let students draw their own zodiac animal. Make sure they add the sentence “I was born in the year of the …..”. There are 12 animals that each represent a year (Rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig). Investigation of your own zodiac animal
Dress a doll in traditional Chinese clothes. Download the template here. Cut the fabrics and stick it on the gingerbread man. design and create the traditional Chinese clothes as you wish. This activity is great for fine motor skills and measuring.
Chinese characters activity; print the template and let the student paint or color the worksheet. This character is the good fortune sign. Next they can make a frame with loose parts or foam stickers or Popsicle sticks. You can download this worksheet here.
Emergent reader for kindergarten with chinese new year vocabulary and the sight words I, SEE,A/AN minibook. This mini book is perfect for the literacy centre or for early finishers. Just print and cut to make it a mini book. Kids can read the sentence and trace, box, color and dot the vocabulary word.
I hope you like these low prep 5 Lunar New Year activities for kindergarten. What do you like to do for Lunar New Year?
I love low prep resources. Thank you once again.