Chinese New Year Links
(including general links on China and Chinese customs)

Updated on 20 October 2009

Back to Activity Village's Chinese New Year pages

In our quest for some good Chinese New Year activities, we have come across some wonderful sites on the web which will give you and your children a real taste of this colourful festival as well as Chinese traditions and customs in general - whether they originate in Asia or elsewhere in the world.

The Year of the Ox (2009)

What do you know about people born in the Year of the OX (1985, 1997, 2009)? Read about their characteristics here NEW!
http://www.c-c-c.org/chineseculture/zodiac/Ox.html  

Year of the Ox bookmark to print NEW!
http://www.primarygames.com/print_zone/bookmarks/animals/ox.htm

Check out your luck forecast for 2009! NEW!
http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/2009.htm

More Chinese New Year Links...

Learn! 

A look at Chinese painting NEW!
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/chinese/html_pages/index.htm

Virtual tour of china NEW! 
http://www.kiku.com/electric_samurai/virtual_china/index.html

Ancient Chinese clothing NEW! 
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/clothing/

Lots of information about Chinese New Year
http://www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/438/CHINA/chinese_new_year.html

A Chinese New Year lesson plan, including some good printables (make your own lucky money envelope, learn to use chopsticks, how silk is made, and more) http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonplans/unit_chinesenewyear_PR.htm

Another lesson plan for Chinese New Year. This one has a fun Chinese calligraphy reproducible
http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/instructor/Jan05_china.htm

Look at and enjoy some Chinese scroll paintings
http://www.thavibu.com/china/index.htm

Outline map of China
http://www.abcteach.com/china/chinamap1.htm

Read about life in China for an American family with four kids!
http://www.mondovista.com/china33.html

Take a look at Chinese currency on this page
http://www.chinatour.com/currency/currency.htm
Perhaps you could use the images to create your own pretend currency to use in the classroom or home?

This UK home-schooling family's site has some wonderful ideas for a Chinese New Year project
http://www.muddlepuddle.co.uk/Chinese%20new%
20year/Our%20Spring%20Festival.htm

Find out about Chinese paper cuts 
http://www.isaacnet.com/culture/papercut.htm

Learn how to use chopsticks at this website
http://east.portland.ne.jp/%7Ek_tok/life01.htm

Fun for teachers - find out what characteristics your class will have according to their Chinese horoscope
http://www.planetesme.com/chinesenewyear.html

Make!

Chinese New Year drum NEW! 
http://home.howstuffworks.com/chinese-new-year-crafts2.htm

Dragon sock puppet NEW! 
http://www.swazzle.com/pdfs/dragonsockpuppet.pdf

Very cute "Chinese lanterns" made with jam jars and tissue paper NEW! 
http://www.alphamom.com/holiday/2009/01/
celebrate_chinese_new_year_wit_1.php

Cute patterns to make a little Chinese girl and a Chinese lantern with hamma beads
http://www.jufjanneke.nl/Project%20China/Kralenplank%20Chinese.pdf http://www.jufjanneke.nl/Project%20China/
Kralenplank%20Chinese%20lantaren.pdf

Make a noisy dragon - part craft, part science experiment
http://www.creativesteps.co.uk/pdfs/dragon.pdf

Make a good luck "fu" poster
http://www.chinapage.com/word/luck.html

Make a lion mask 
http://www.childbook.com/free/projects/lion.html
The lion dance is performed during the lantern festival at the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Children can make their own lion mask with a paper plate, yellow construction paper and other bits and pieces

Make a Chinese Yo Yo
http://www.makingfriends.com/yoyo.htm
If you have any “metallic” wrapping paper, use it for a better and more long-lasting result!  

Make a Happy New Year poster 
http://www.chineseparade.com/pdf/CNY%20banners.pdf 

Print! 

Cute Chinese New Year and Year of the Ox lai see envelopes (also known as li see, red packets or lucky money envelopes) to print
http://documents.scribd.com/docs/1jjb5vs4nzqht2ncl13e.pdf NEW!  

Very cute little Year of the Ox notes to print
http://triciarennea.blogspot.com/2009/01/year-of-ox-notes.html NEW!

Design and print out your own personalized red packets (lucky money envelopes)
http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/games/hongBow_v4.html

Print and colour these Chinese New Year cards
http://www.crayola.com/cardcreator/index.cfm?action=holidays&id=25

Have fun with this printable dragon fortune teller
http://www.tammyyee.com/origamidragon.html

Here’s a traditional Chinese good luck scroll to print
http://www.afk.com/images/scroll.gif  

Print and make!

Dragon lantern to print and make NEW!  
Instructions:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/events/worksheets/chinesenewyear_lantern.pdf
Cut out:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/events/worksheets/pdf/
chinesenewyear_cutout.pdf

Print and colour this large Chinese dragon banner NEW!
http://www.scissorcraft.com/dragons5.htm

Make a dragon puppet NEW!
Head:
http://www.billybear4kids.com/holidays/ChineseNewYear/
MakeADragon/dragonHeads.shtml 
Body:
http://www.billybear4kids.com/holidays/ChineseNewYear/
MakeADragon/dragonBody.shtml
Tail:
http://www.billybear4kids.com/holidays/ChineseNewYear/
MakeADragon/dragonTails.shtml

Print, colour and make a Chinese lantern
http://www.crayola.com/activitybook/print.cfm?id=898

Here is a super printable origami project – a dragon puppet for Chinese New Year
http://www.tammyyee.com/origamidpup.html

Have fun with this simple panda craft made from hearts, great for younger children 
http://www.first-school.ws/activities/shapes/animals/panda-hearts.htm

Print and make this mini-book about the Chinese New Year  
http://www.chineseparade.com/pdf/CNY%20celebration%20worksheet.pdf

Print and make this Chinese dragon lantern 
http://www.first-school.ws/theme/crafts/chinese-paper-lantern.htm

Do!

Fill in the blanks worksheet NEW!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/events/worksheets/pdf/
chinesenewyear_fillintheblanks.pdf

Chinese numbers worksheet NEW!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/events/worksheets/pdf/
chinesenewyear_numerals.pdf

Chinese new year word search NEW!  http://www.primarygames.com/holidays/chinese/games/
word_search/search.htm

Help the children find their red envelopes in this maze NEW! http://edhelper.com/ChineseNewYearMaze.htm

Try to unscramble the names of these Chinese zodiac animals 
http://www.edhelper.com/themes/chinesenewyear_1.htm

Have fun with this Chinese New Year maze 
http://www.edhelper.com/ChineseNewYearMaze.htm

Try this crossword based on the book Day of the Dragon King by Mary Pope Osborne (a Magic Treehouse story) – the clues are all about China and its history 
http://www.abcteach.com/free/c/crswd_dayofthedragnoking.pdf

Enjoy!

See If you can find your name here in Chinese NEW!             http://www.chinese4kids.net/name.php

Or type your name here for a translation
http://www.mandarintools.com/chinesename.html

Chinese graphics NEW!                                                   http://www.chinapage.com/newyr.html

Watch a video clip of a Chinese dragon parade NEW!
http://www.chcp.org/mpeg/index.html

Send an e-card NEW!         
http://www.123greetings.com/events/chinese_new_year/happy/

Online jigsaw NEW!                                       
http://www.surfnetkids.com/games/china-js.htm

Online Chinese New Year games to play, including some fun tangrams, Chinese character puzzles, and a series of activities in "Countdown to the New Year" which introduce many of the traditions of the holiday
http://pbskids.org/sagwa/games/index.html

Chinese New Year song - words, music and actions to enjoy with little ones
http://www.nancymusic.com/Gunghayplay.htm

Have a look at some Chinese characters (perhaps use them as 'clipart' to decorate your projects?)
http://www.chinapage.com/word/chineseword.html

Try this giant panda cam!
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/

Have fun singing these songs about Chinese New Year, all sung to well-known nursery rhyme tunes 
http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems54.html

Play!

Lots of Chinese games to learn and play at home here NEW!                 http://www.childbook.com/Chinese-Children-Game-Instructions-s/79.htm

Tangrams were invented in China. You can print out a set here, and then print out a number of puzzle pages to challenge your children
http://www.funorama.com/tangram.html  

Play this excellent online "patience" game using Mahjong tiles (we called it "turtle" when we were young). There is a special, smaller-sized, kid's version.
http://www.thepuzzlefactory.com/swf.cfm?
pftype=dynasty&pffilename=dynasty

Learn to play Mahjong
http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/mahjong/mahjong.html
Mahjong is a fun family game, similar to gin rummy. As children my brother and I used to love shuffling the tiles around and building the walls for the next hand!

Chinese New Year games to play online
http://www.primarygames.com/holidays/chinese/games.htm

Read!

Stories from Chinese classical literature NEW!                         http://www.chinapage.com/story/story.html

Color! 

Our links to Chinese New Year coloring pages are here

Cook!

Chinese lantern cakes NEW!
http://www.nickjr.com/parenting/parenting_features/
chinese-new-year/lanternparty/oriental-recipes/chinese-new-year-lantern-cakes.jhtml

Traditional recipes for Chinese New Year
http://www.101chinesenewyear.com/recipes.html 

Back to Chinese New Year

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