EYFS: Fun Chinese New Year Activities

Lunar New Year through Seven Areas of Learning

Chinese New Year is celebrated across China and other Asian countries! During this wonderful time of the year the other countries join the celebration too and share the experience by learning vibrancy of the culture. Lunar New Year through EYFS and seven areas of learning provides children with first hand learning of the culture and their heritage. 

Personal Social Emotional Development (PSED)

This Chinese New year brings a year of the Dragon! We will use the symbolysm throughout our learning in the classrooms and enable children's Emotional development and social skills through this wonderful book. 

"Kindness a Dragon Shared" is a perfect book teaching children about being kind to one another and with a diverse cast of characters, it's a must-have for your child's bookshelf! The story of Aaron and the mysterious knight will have kids laughing, cheering, and learning valuable lessons about treating others with kindness. 

Communication and Language (CL)

in our classrooms are directly related to communication and language. Once or as children learn new words and the more they do, their communication skills dramatically increase day by day as they pick up new words and can form longer sentences as well as being able to retell and repeat things they’ve learnt or read. We use our language cards to teach them different key words linked to specific themes of the month. With learning about Chinese New Year, learning about the Chinese language is a great way to broaden children’s horizons.

Physical Development (PD)

Physical development is paramount aspect of the child's learning. It sets foundation of self-awareness and confidence! In China children play many wonderful physical games such as Shuttlecock kicking (Jianzi); Chinese Yo-Yo (Diabolo); Catching the Dragon's Tail (Longwei Laohu); Chopsticks Challenge (Kuai Zi Bi); Jumping Rope (Tiao Yue) and so on. These activities is a great fun for children to take part in with their friends, teachers and even parents! Read more in our "Traditional Children's Games in China: A Cultural Experience" blog post.

Literacy (Lit)

At Hatching Dragons preschool children learn through interactive ways which can be taken from nursery to home! 'I spy' and Makaton resources we provide can be used in a variety of ways! Through repetitive and structured teaching the children are most successful developing their understanding of letters and sounds. 

Mathematics (Mat)

Number sequencing and reciting numbers in everyday language is so much fun! Chuseok I Spy activity prompts problem solving skills such as being able to identify similarities and differences, grouping and comparing, willing to have a go and confidently identifying objects. This activity also teaches children positional and language and can be used to encourage use of words such as "next to", "besides", "above", "under" when identifying different objects that the children notice!

Understanding of the World (UTW)

Learning about the wider world around them provides children with a greater horizons and enables their inquisitively and curiosity. Celebrating the Chinese New Year (Chinese Festivals) book is a perfect way to teach children about Lunar New Year and why people celebrate it. IN the book Little Mei wants to know why her family celebrates the Chinese New Year. All her family members have their own reasons, but it is Grandpa who tells her the story of Nian and monster Xi. This wonderful story allows children to reason within their own concept and learn about traditions and festivals of China through the story.

Expressive Arts and Design (EAD)

New Year brings a year of a dragon! There are so many wonderful crafts activities to teach about the symbolism, the culture whilst being creative! Using recycled materials such as cardboard box and some paint as well as colourful straps of paper and crepe paper to create a final parts of the dragon tail will result in the most fantastic dragon for dramatic play! The dragon can then be used for dance, sing along activities and extravagant dramatic play! Just be creative in the process!