Chinese New Year Children’s Activities: Fun Ideas to Do at Home

Chinese New Year for us, like many other people around the world, is the highlight of our calendar! Filled with good food, family and quality time! It is when we reflect on everything that has happened in the past year and everything we have to look forward to in the next. It is an opportunity to celebrate Chinese culture, heritage and customs. As part of our cultural capital educational programme here at Hatching Dragons, we celebrate festivals like this every month

In 2021, Chinese New Year falls on the 12th of February and is the year of the Ox. The Ox represents strength, reliability, diligence and generosity, qualities we will definitely embrace and harness over the following months. Although celebrations will be very different this year, we look forward to celebrating at home. To start the festivities, we have compiled Chinese New Year Children’s Activities, which we hope you will find entertaining and enjoy!

Chinese New Year Children’s Activities: 5 Different Options

1.Cooking Chinese Food

Nothing beats freshly made dumplings! If you have the time and are looking for a fun activity that will not only be enjoyable but will leave you feeling full and satisfied, we recommend following this tutorial. There are many traditional dishes you can make to celebrate Chinese New year, including noodles and fish, which are considered good luck! Whilst cooking, be sure to introduce as much vocabulary to your child as possible and use it as an engaging learning opportunity! For more inspiration, see here.

2. Colouring in

Are you feeling creative? We have created an Ox template that you can decorate and then display around the house (see below). You can use whatever colours and materials you fancy,  we will be choosing red of course! Or if you don’t feel like colouring in-between the lines, feel free to draw anything that makes you think of Chinese New Year and be sure to share it with us!

3. Singing

As you may know already, we are huge fans of music! We believe that nothing brings people together quite like joining in song, and therefore have provided lyrics for our Happy New Year jingle, which we have been practising in the nursery. We encourage you to perform the song to loved ones, either in the living room or over zoom. Although we may be far from our family this year, that doesn’t mean you can’t involve them! For a playlist of Chinese New Year Songs to get you feeling festive, see here.

4. Money Game

One of our favourite parts of Chinese New year is giving and receiving red envelopes! However, is your little one confident on what all of the different coins they may be receiving are? The money tree game involves matching physical coins to the template and learning the names, shapes and colour of each coin (see template below). You can also use this game as an opportunity to practise counting!

5. Dragon Puppet Show

It would not be Chinese New Year without a dragon dance! This dragon puppet is easy to make and can be done with items you will likely already have at home. The more colourful you make the dragon, the better! Once you have let it dry, you can make your puppet dance to the music! 

For an introduction to Chinese dragon dance see here.

Overall, we hope that you will find these Chinese New Year children’s activities useful and that they will provide you with inspiration! If you are looking for more online resources to educate your child about Chinese language and culture, follow our blog!

Templates