Week 6 February 8th 2021
MONDAY
Friday 12th February is Chinese New Year. Usually Chinese New Year Festival period lasts for 16 days, starting from Chinese New Year's eve to the Lantern Festival. In 2021, it is from February 11th (New Year's Eve) to February 26th. To introduce the festival to the children watch the videos below.
TUESDAY
What do we already know about Chinese New Year? Give children a few minutes to think, pair, share
their ideas.
Read through the slides telling ‘The Story of Nian’ and describing the different customs throughout
Chinese New Year, stopping occasionally to ask children the questions on the slides as you go, e.g.
‘Why do you think Chinese New Year is such an important celebration for Chinese people across the
world?’ ‘How is Chinese New Year celebrated?’ Invite children to share their ideas.
Activity: Give your child the Lantern instruction Sheet and Chinese Sayings Card 1. Ask the children to use the instructions to create a lantern with support then choose a Chinese saying to decorate their lantern. Alternatively they could make a chinese drum, instructions for both are on the sheet.
Wednesday
What did we learn about Chinese New Year in our previous lesson? Give your child a few minutes to
think, pair, share their ideas.
Watch the Chinese New Year story. Ask the children if they can recall any of the animals from the story. ‘Why do they think they tell this story during Chinese New Year?’
The Chinese New Year calendar has 12 years in a cycle. Each cycle is named after an animal, in a particular order: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. When the cycle is over, on the Year of the Pig, the Year of the Rat starts and so on. Use the image below to work out what Chinese animal each of your family was born under.
Challenge: Draw the animal you were born under and write it's name or make a puppet or a mask of the animal, or play the animal race game.
Thursday
Today we are going to look at the different foods that are eaten at Chinese New Year. Have you ever had food from a chinese restaurant or take away? Have you ever eaten noodles? Have you ever tried to eat with chop sticks?
Challenge: Can you make your own fortune cookie? You can make one out of paper or you could try and bake your own! Perhaps you might like to try some other chinese cooking?
Creative Ideas
Gunghay
