Chinese New Year

Understanding the World: People and Communities

Chinese New Year has a wealth of different activities and resources to enhance an Understanding the World lesson about People and Communities.

The children are always interested in different cultures and customs, especially something they are unfamiliar with.

Chinese New Year dates depend on the lunar calendar. It falls on a different day each year.

You may see the words ‘Kung hei fat choi’ associated with Chinese New Year. This is the Cantonese way of saying happy Chinese New Year. Cantonese is mainly only spoken in Hong Kong. The majority of people in China speak Mandarin. The Mandarin way to say Happy New Year is ‘Gong xi fa cai’ (or gong see fah sigh).

I tend to teach the Chinese New Year topic and have accumulated a number of resources over the years.

Please see the lesson plan below..

Chinese New Year

Display and Resources

This year (2013), Chinese New Year is Sunday 10th February, although celebrations will take place for the entire weekend. I will be teaching the children about Chinese New Year the week commencing 11th February.

I do enjoy sharing Chinese New Year with the children in school. They have already explored Christmas and New Year a month before so are open to understanding that in China they celebrate New Year at a different time.

Chinese New Year is an excellent way to explore new cultures and talk about different ways of life. There are so many different resources and learning opportunities, there is even a story!

This is the Chinese New Year display in my classroom, it’s almost taking over one wall!

I am very fortunate to have a mother-in-law who can send me beautiful Chinese artefacts to show the children but there are a number of shops in my area which can supply easy to find resources.

You can also find resources for Chinese New Year from learning libraries.

I bought a number of the resources I use in my classroom from the China town in Birmingham.

I’m going to talk about the resources I have in my classroom based on the best of my ability, however if I say anything wrong, please leave a comment and let me know!