Chinese New Year Themed Learning Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Read full privacy policy here.
Chinese Play Restaurant
You can see all the details of how I created my Chinese Dramatic Play Restaurant in this blog post.
Pretend play requires a bit more time investment to set up for kids, but it’s also a longer payout because kids love to play there and will extend learning time by enjoying learning in this activity.
I encourage language use by providing phrases such as “你想吃什么？/What would you like to eat?” and engaging in play using Chinese language. It’s a win for everyone because kids always love to play pretend with you and it makes you feel more purpose and enjoyment in playing with your child because you’re practicing language skills!
Printables for the Chinese Restaurant can be found here.
Sensory Play Ideas
Sensory play creates fun and meaningful Chinese language learning experiences for kids. When more of the five senses are involved in the learning, more learning happens! It’s fact! So, as they are feeling and hearing things move around as they play, they are more ready to learn and engage in language.
I try to create learning goals and playful activities for each sensory bin that I create. Here are four sample ideas of some sensory activities help your child practice Chinese.
Hong Bao 红包 Math and Language Bin
This sensory learning bin is full of dried black beans and then I added some bamboo cups for scooping and some play money and lucky coins.
The goal for this bin is for kids to practice using the words hong bao/红包 and to practice counting and saying numbers. I added coins and play money so they could match numbers and practice simple addition as they added money to each red envelope.
3D Hot Glue Chinese Character Play
For this playful learning activity, I made a simple sensory bin using rice that I’ve dyed red with paint and some Chinese characters that I made using hot glue.
To create the hot glue Chinese characters you will need:
- Parchment Paper
- Sharpie Markers
- Hot Glue Gun
- A Paper with the Characters for you to trace
Seek and Find Chinese Character Sensory Bin
I created the base for this sensory play activity by using plain old table salt. I placed the salt in a gallon sized ziplock baggie and added a bit of liquid water color to it, shook it up, then laid it out to dry and it is now beautifully colored 🙂
Then, I used the handy-dandy circle Avery stickers to attach Chinese words to the bottom of some of my peg people. I have my kids pick up the peg person, match the Chinese character to the Chinese words on the matching printable (or any paper you write the words on) and then color it in with a paint dauber or a marker. They could also cover up the Chinese word on the printable with a small toy or rock etc.
Color Sorting Sensory Activity
This is a great way to make learning fun for your littlest kids! Even babies love to play with this. We just sort the objects into the cups based on color. It gives an opportunity to hear Chinese as you say the colors and then you can have your child repeat the correct Chinese color word each time they add an object to the cup!
Here I also added some colored fruit counters so we could use them to practice colors OR fruits in Chinese! Fun, right!?
Chinese Zodiac Animal Matching and Sorting
Kids love learning the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac! There is a fun chant in this book that helps my kids practice the order and names of the twelve animals.
We also LOVE this TOOB from Safari LTD that has a little toy animal model of each of the Chinese zodiac animals.
I made these printable cards and posters to use as we learn the animals and their names. We use them as matching games, writing practice, matching the animals to the cards, and posters to hang up!
Chinese New Year Songs
These two books both come with CDs and have great songs to help practice learning Chinese.
The Rhythm and Tones book is from China Sprout and has great “chants” that help us keep tones in tact as we’re learning.
The Chinese Nursery Rhyme book has authentic Chinese songs and rhymes that are great for learning culture.
Chinese New Year Books
I don’t own many Chinese books that explicitly teach about Chinese New Year traditions and culture, (I have loads in English) but I have two bilingual Chinese books about Chinese New Year and the Chinese zodiac and a set of bilingual Chinese family books by Todd Parr that I like to review and reread with my kids as we do our Chinese New Year theme because there is a lot of focus on family!
Chinese Number Practice Pages
I have a whole blog post about these Chinese pages. They are a great way to practice number characters in Chinese in a playful way.
Chinese Roll and Color Game
This post shares everything you need to know about using these games and downloading the FREEBIE!
Roll and Erase Chinese Practice Game
Another simple way to practice Chinese langauge and vocabulary is a Roll and Erase game. This game is similar to the roll and cover game I mentioned above, but with this, we put Chinese words or focus vocabulary into a pocket dice and roll it to see which ones to erase!
Simple write the words on a whiteboard and roll and erase. Keep going until you’ve erased all the words!
Incorporating Chinese Language and Words in to Coloring Pages
Kids love coloring. It is great fine motor practice, mindfulness practice, and allows to practice colors and creativity. I like to add Chinese vocabulary to our coloring and writing center as much as possible. By doing so, the children are exposed to language and given background knowledge and experiences they can continue to build on as they grow and learn more in their Chinese language journey.
If you’d like to download the coloring pages I’ve made they can be found here.
Chinese Writing Center Cards
In addition to providing vocabulary words with picture cues for students to look at, I provide the same vocabulary cards for students to practice tracing words.
I simply laminate the cards and provide whiteboard markers and erasers so they can practice writing Chinese words as much or as little as they desire. Giving them many options and opportunities to see and play with language is vital to their language acquisition.
If you’d like to download the cards I’ve made they can be found here.
Chinese Magic Writing Mat
These magical mats make learning Chinese so exciting! They are also a parents dream toy/art supply because it only uses water so even if the kids spill, it’s not a huge mess! No stains, no messy clothes!
Just use water and practice writing, when it evaporates, it erases!
Chinese New Year Crafts
Chinese Paper Cutting
I love the opportunities Chinese New Year provides for creating cultural crafts! These crafts are great opportunities to see Chinese language in new and creative ways.
Here, we can learn the word for spring 春 as we practice scissor skills and learn about paper cutting.
Zodiac Animal Hat
Every year my kids and I make a zodiac animal “hat” for Chinese New Year. It’s more of a “headband” so that they can practice writing the Chinese word on the headband strip.
I update this craft (animal type and year) every year, so if you buy the crafts, it will be updated for the new year every year.
Red Envelope Craft
I love reading about, singing about and learning vocabulary for Chinese New Year with my students and kids. We make a hong bao together and practice writing numbers on green paper so we can add “money” to the red envelopes.
I update this craft (animal type and year) every year, so if you buy the crafts, it will be updated for the new year every year.
Chinese Zodiac Animal Wheel
A fun way to practice the names and order of the twelve Chinese zodiac animals is to make this cute wheel craft!
Fu Banner Paint and Decorate
You can learn about calligraphy, practice painting and decorate your home with these fu blessing posters. The craft bundle also has instructions to create a firecrackers craft!
Chinese Word Scavenger Hunt
A fun way to practice vocabulary with kids is to simply hang pictures around the room and have them run and find them!
You can do this activity with any pictures or vocabulary! Young kids can simply run and hit the picture showing the word you say, or if you want to work on writing you can add the Chinese characters to the picture and having kids write down the words when they find what they’re looking for!
Here, I’ve created a writing zodiac animals scavenger hunt game. You can find it here if you’d like to be able to download it and use it in your own home.
Chinese New Year Play Dough Tray
First, let me start with my favorite play dough recipe. It’s easy and works great every time!
- 2 Cups Flour
- 3/4 Cup Salt
- 4 TBS Cream of tartar
- 2 TBS vegetable oil
- 2 Cups Water
- Food Coloring
Heat all the ingredients on a stove while stirring. Keep stirring until this forms a ball and doesn’t stick to the sides of the pan.
Play dough can be used to create pretend play opportunities for using language, used to create Chinese words, and generally learn and play!
The play dough cards are part of my CNY preschool pack and can be found here.
Light Table Learning
Chinese Words Sorting and Matching Game
Any spin on a matching game is a win if it gets the kids excited about learning.
This is my way to make the learning fit with our Chinese New Year theme- I stuck stickers with Chinese focus words onto some coins and red envelopes so the kids can sort and match in a fun, hands-on way!
Writing on Easels
Something to keep in mind as you come up with ideas for teaching your kids Chinese is that sometimes you just need to tweak an easy well-known idea to make it new and exciting.
Sometimes kids just need a new medium to use as they write! If you’re used to crayons, try markers, if you’re used to markers, try chalk, if you’re used to chalk, try paint sticks, etc.
You don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. You got this! JIA YOU 加油！ I hope these ideas are helpful to you. Please feel free to comment or contact me as you use this or come up with others on your Chinese language journey with your kids.