31 Chinese Learning Activities for Kids

This post contains enough Chinese learning activities for kids to keep things fun and interesting all month long. Your child will look forward each day to doing one of these easy Chinese learning activities with you!

Learning Chinese is easiest and most effective if children learn as babies and toddlers. These playful Chinese language and literacy activities will keep your preschooler or toddler engaged and excited about learning. Listed below are 31 activities that we did and shared on our instagram @xiaopandapreschool throughout the month of May. I hope these activities provide inspiration for fun ways you can play and learn Chinese with your children too!

The 31 activities were originally shared on my Instagram @XiaoPandaPreschool through the month of May. Check out #ChinesePlayinMay to see all the activities in action.

This post does include affiliate links for which I receive a small commission at no cost to you. See disclosure page for full details. Thank you for your support. <3

Chinese Activities for Kids - An Activity for Every Day of the Month!

1. Salt Painting Chinese Characters

This is a great science and exploration activity that feels like play, but really helps focus a toddlers attention on the target language. This can be done with any language, English ABCs, numbers, or of course Chinese characters.

Gather your materials: paper, school glue, salt, and water colors/food dye or liquid water colors. I also use a small scoop and a tray for the salt pouring and catching portion of the activity.
Write the character with glue OR write the character with a pencil and have your child trace over it with the school glue. You can decide what your child is ready for.
Shake salt onto the glue and then shake excess into a tray. Make sure all the glue is covered. (TIP: keep your paper lying flat while doing the salt or the glue with run/drip and the character will not be clear.)
Use a dropper and drip color or use paint brushes and paint onto the salt. The watercolors spread over the salt and it is very fascinating to watch!

2. Outdoor Play with Chalk and Spray Bottles

If the weather is good, preschoolers love to go outside for activities. Outdoors makes any learning activity seem more exciting and playful. We used regular chalk (not sidewalk chalk) and it worked just fine. I think any chalk will work. Ours we had was from IKEA. The spray bottles I had were from the dollar store.

Gather supplies: chalk and spray bottles
Write words on a sidewalk or driveway.
Play practice and review games. Try shouting out the word and having your child run to it. Or play “follow the leader” and say the words as you step on them.
Give your child a spray bottle and say the word they need to try to “erase” with the water. Say the word as your child is squirting water or have them repeat the word as they spray.
If the sun is shining bright, the water might evaporate quickly and you can continue playing over and over because by the time one character is wet the other will be dry! Endless hours of fun for your toddler.

3. Tracing Chinese Characters with Stickers

Stickers provide fine motor hand strengthening for little hands as they peel and stick – especially when trying to line up in a specific way such as following the lines of a Chinese word. However, it is fun and feels like play to choose stickers, colors, patterns that interest your toddler.

If you know Chinese, you can use a marker to write any character you’d like on a piece of paper for your child to trace with stickers.

If you’re not familiar with Chinese you can use these printable pages I’ve provided to follow. They are numbers 1-10 and six very basic words. Each has the English, Pinyin, and an English phonetic pronunciation to help assist if you’re unfamiliar how to pronounce pinyin.

All you need for this activity is stickers!

When complete, have your child trace the Chinese with their two fingers and repeat the word. This is a Montessori method that helps with memory because it provides multiple senses in learning.

I like this set because the stickers are small and uniform for this activity. Plus there are a TON in this pack. Plenty of sticker tracing for my kiddos.

The avery labels are classic. Not as appealing on their own as the other set, but much more versatile. They can be used for matching and many other fun activities too.

4. Run and Find the Chinese Word

All you need for this activity is post-it notes and a marker. Write target words you’re working on on post-its and stick them around the room. Shout out words and have fun as your child runs to each and hits it!

5. Hide and Seek, Find the Object
Chinese Vocabulary Practice Game

I love practicing colors this way by using colored easter eggs or colored cups and hiding something inside. Your child guesses where the object is by saying the target Chinese word.

I also did this with this fun animal easter eggs to practice animals. The eggs are cheap and easy to find at the dollar store if its close to Easter.

You can also do this with any target vocabulary by writing the word or taping a picture onto a cup and hiding the object underneath the picture or word. SO FUN! I have done this game on youtube with colors before if you want to see how I do it. Click Here to check out the example of me doing it on Youtube.

6. Painting Chinese Characters in the Bathtub

I promise your children will love you for this one!

I made bath paints by mixing food coloring with shaving cream. That’s it! Super easy!

First, I tried to have my kids write words they knew or that I was asking them to do, and then I let them go wild.

The paints rinse off in seconds with water and you’d never know it looked crazy messy moments before.

7. Tracing Chinese Characters with Washi Tape

Print out or write any Chinese words you want to practice. Or you can use this freebie with basic words and their pronunciations.

Give your child any kind of tape, craft tape, washi tape, or even paper scraps and a glue stick and let them tape over the target word.

8. Squirting Paper Towel Chromatography

For this one, you’ll need some paper towels, washable markers (I love the Mr. Sketch scented markers!) and little squeezy tools such as pipettes.

Write down any Chinese characters, shapes, colors, numbers or other target words on a paper towel. Say the word or have your child say the word as they drip and squeeze water onto the paper towel and watch the color spread.

This is a fun science concept as they water the color spread but also helps keep their focus on the shapes, or characters they are practicing.

9. Chinese Story Stones

Gather some flat smooth stones (or buy some) and a Sharpie. I bought these river rocks from either Michaels or the Dollar Store I think, but you could do a fun nature walk and find some, or use Amazon link I shared below.

Draw pictures that represent the Chinese characters like a flash card: i.e. Hua on the front and a flower picture on the back. OR you can draw a picture on one stone and the character on another and make it a fun matching game.

10. Drawing Chinese in and on Cardboard

Whether you have a large box or a big flat piece, it doesn’t matter. Kids love having a new surface to color and draw on top of. You can give them markers, crayons, paint, bingo dotters, chalk, anything goes! You can also add stickers or glue on collage materials. Its a large surface and if it’s a box, they can sit inside and draw on all the sides and flaps.

Make this a Chinese learning activity by writing characters for your child to trace or draw pictures of their meaning. You could also write sentences and have them fill in characters if they are more advanced.

11. Roll and Erase the Chinese Word

For this game you’ll need a whiteboard, dry erase markers, an eraser and a pocket dice.

I choose any six characters we are working on and write them on paper and stick it in the pocket dice.

Then I write those same words on the whiteboard many times. Your child rolls the die and matches the character on the die with the character on the board and erases one of them.

Keep rolling until you’ve erased all the words on the whiteboard! If you don’t have a whiteboard, you could use dry erase markers and draw on windows or mirrors or even the refrigerator!

12. Dot the Chinese Character

I made these simple pages to do something similar to a “word search” or a “Color by Code”

Your child can use paint dotters or avery label stickers or crayons or markers or stamps to find the characters.

We used one color per character and tried to find all the “mountains” then move on the “ni/you” etc.

13. Trace Chinese Characters with
Mini-Erasers

Write or print a target Chinese character very large on a piece of paper. Then, use mini-erasers (or any fun small manipulative) to trace the character.

I have found mini-erasers to be the cheapest at Target in the “Dollar Spot” but sometimes they are hard to find.

14. Go on a Shape Hunt in Chinese

All you need for this is some paper and drawing utensils. I also gave my kids clipboards and magnifying glasses because it makes it fun to wander around the room feeling like an explorer or a scientist.

Simple say the name of a shape in Chinese and have your child try to find something similar to that shape in the room your searching, then draw it on their paper. For example, the pillow is a square, the photo is a rectangle, the clock is a circle, etc.

I found clipboards and magnifying glasses at the Dollar Tree.

15. The Chinese Passcode Game

Print out Chinese characters and laminate. Then, tape one or two words next to various doorways in your home. Every time your child wants to pass by they say the word and give it a high five.

My daughter has taken this game very seriously and sometimes says she’s “stuck” in a room because she can’t remember one of the words. She also tells her dad (who doesn’t speak Chinese) that he is not allowed in if he doesn’t say the words. It is super fun and effective!

16. Chinese Crayon Rubbings

The day before you want to do this activity, write a few target Chinese words onto cardstock paper and trace over the top with some Elmers glue. Set these aside and let them dry thoroughly. (I recommend overnight). The next day the glue will look flatter, but it will be dry and you can put that paper underneath a thin paper such as normal copy paper and rub the paper with a crayon.

The Chinese character will show through on the new paper.

17. "Write" the character in the Air with Scarves Guessing Game

Write a character in the air and see if the other person can guess it! Then, have your child write a word in the air and see if you can guess. Obviously, it’s tricky because the word is backwards for the person watching, but it’s still possible to guess and great motivation for kids to try using the correct stroke order!

18. Outdoor Shape Vocabulary Games

Draw and write shape words on the sidewalk. Play games to practice using the vocabulary:

Say the word and run to the correct shape.
Say the word over and over as you trace the shape with your finger or walk around the edge of the shape.
Let your child be the “teacher” and say the name of the shape while you have to run/follow the directions.

19. Painting Chinese Characters

It’s as easy and straight-forward as it sounds. Provide paper and paints and instead of just writing down the characters, use paint and paint the words!

20. Sensory Play with Chinese Words.

Provide any kind of sensory material such as water beads, sand, or dry rice or beans and put target vocabulary words inside the material. Have your child find the word and then write it down until he has found all the words!

21. Rainbow Writing

Rather than just copying the same word over and over, try making it more fun by writing same word again and again on a large scale using color patterns or rainbow colors!

22. Play Dough and Pipe Cleaners

Give some target words on paper, cards, etc. for your child to copy. Then allow them to use play dough, pipe cleaners and scissors to create words as they please.

They can:

make words out of molded play dough.
make words out of cut up sections of pipe cleaners
place pipe cleaners on the play dough to create words.

23. Chinese Balloon Learning Games

Use your handy Sharpie to write some Chinese characters on balloons and let the fun begin! I even wrotea couple words on each balloon so that my kids could choose which word they wanted to read. This gives them a higher chance for success and a feeling of ownership and control that helps them enjoy the activity.

Game Options:

Play catch and say one of the Chinese words on the balloon when you catch it.
Play catch and try to say the word that your thumb lands on.
Try to keep the balloon from hitting the floor (keep it in the air by hitting it) and every time you hit the balloon say one of the Chinese characters you see on it.
Call out a Chinese word and your child finds it and stomps on the balloon or pops it with a pin! (This one is really exciting for the kiddos! But obviously it should be done when you’re almost ready to be done because once the balloons are popped the games are over).

24. Chinese Tic Tac Toe Writing Practice

Play a normal game of tic tac toe, but each player chooses a Chinese character to represent their spot (rather than an X or O).

You can decide if you want to focus on stroke order or not. Just make sure it’s still fun for your child and they’re not angry or frustrated because that defeats the purpose!

You can also adjust this for younger children by pre-writing some Chinese words on paper squares and having your child place them on a tic tac toe board rather than writing them themselves.

Day 25: Chinese Crayon Resist Watercolors

This activity is so fun and beautiful especially if you have quality supplies. I loved doing this with my kiddos because we had good watercolor paper and lovely liquid watercolor paints. It was fun for me! However, obviously you can also do this on a piece of regular or construction paper and some typical watercolor palettes for kids!

First, use a white crayon to write a chinese word. I also drew some little drawings around some of them like clouds about “yun/云“ because it helped with comprehension and it was just fun!

After you’ve drawn with the white crayon, simply paint wherever you’d like on the paper to reveal the secret message/word/Chinese character!

26. Chinese Eggs and Egg Hunt

Use some of your handy leftover plastic eggs from Easter and write a Chinese character on both halves of the egg and then match them up.

OR- write a Chinese character on one half and write the pinyin or draw a picture on the other half and have them match them!

AND write the Chinese words on the egg carton itself so each egg has a specific spot that can be matched yet again.

THEN you can play an egg hunt game and take turns hiding and finding hte eggs and placing them in the carton (match the characters) and identifying which Chinese words you have found and which you are still missing.

27. Cleaning Chinese Words on Toys

Use a dry erase or washable marker to write focus Chinese words onto washable toys. Give you child cleaning tools and water to scrub the words off and that’s it! Voila! Now you have clean toys and you’ve practiced Chinese!

28. Chinese Bingo

Basic bingo cards usually have numbers, and that would be just fine for practicing numbers in Chinese! Just read out a number in Chinese and see if your child can find the numeral that correlates.

For me, I made a few of my own Bingo Cards. I made one to practice shapes and colors and one to practice numbers.

You can use skittles of crackers as bingo pieces or you can use any little toy or rock as a bingo chip.

29. Microwavable Puffy Paint

To make this microwavable puffy paint mix:

1 cup flour
1/4 cup baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup water

Mix these ingredients together and separate into small condiment bottles and add food coloring or liquid watercolors in your choice of colors.

Use a stronger paper such as cardstock. After you’ve created a picture, microwave your picture for 15-30 seconds depending on how thick the paint is. Check to make sure it’s not hot before letting your child touch it. It gets bigger and ends up with a hard or spongy texture that is so fun to touch!

30. Roll and Color

I used a roll of butcher paper for this because I knew I wanted to make something bigger and allow both kids to work in one space, but you can easily do this on a smaller scale.

I drew a large rectangle and separated it into sections. In each section I wrote one of 6 different Chinese characters we are working on. I then wrote those same six characters (this can be done with alphabet letters or numbers too!) in the pockets of a large pocket dice.

I provided tempura paint sticks because they roll on smooth and are SO fun for kids to use. They are great for a bigger space like this because they fill the space much quicker than markers or crayons, but they don’t make the mess that paint does.

The rules of the game: Roll the dice, color in a section that has the same character that was on the die.

My daughter even decided to cut out her finished product and hung it above her bed 🙂

31. Chinese Writing in Colored Salt or Sand

You can dye salt yourself by simply mixing liquid water colors and salt in a bag and laying it out to dry (overnight is best).

Or you can buy colored art sand. I have the brand I shared below and it has been lasting me FOREVER and I’ve found lots of fun uses for it. It is by far the best deal on colored sand you can find on Amazon.

You can also use shaving cream. Spread shaving cream on a table or tray. Give your child some Chinese characters to practice in the cream. They use fingers to write and then a flat hand to erase and try again!