Chinese Zodiac & Chinese New Year - Lunar New Year Reading & Writing Activities

Introduce your students to Chinese New Year (also known as the Lunar New Year) and the Chinese zodiac with these 3 activities. There is 1 Chinese New Year reading passage, 1 Chinese zodiac reading passage, and 1 Chinese zodiac writing activity. Use the bonus animals of the Chinese zodiac poster in a Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year bulletin board display. Chinese New Year 2024 (Lunar New Year 2024) begins on February 10th and it will be the Year of the Dragon.

✓ Please Note:

* Many countries in Asia celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday and have their own names for it. This resource calls it "Chinese New Year" because I worked in China for 3 1/2 years and the Chinese zodiac images come from there.

Resource at a Glance:

★ What will students learn and do?

* The cycle of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac.

* Practice reading information texts and answering comprehension question about them.

* The characteristics of people born under each sign of the Chinese zodiac.

* Practice writing opinion paragraphs about their zodiac animal.

★ Who is it for?

* All students, including English Language Learners at intermediate and higher levels of language proficiency, who are learning about China.

★ How does it help teachers?

* The 2 reading passages just need to be photocopied and distributed to students.

* Comprehension questions about the reading texts let you easily see if students understood the content.

* Included answer keys make it easy to assess students’ work — you can correct it or let students correct their work themselves.

* 3 models of an opinion piece of writing help ELL and other students at different levels of writing ability do the writing task.

* The opinion writing task includes templates for each Chinese zodiac animal, with lists the years for each animal on them, to help you quickly figure out which pages to give your students.

* An assessment rubric for evaluating students’ opinion paragraphs is included for your convenience.

* An 8.5” x 11” poster of the animals of the Chinese zodiac that you can use in a bulletin board display for a unit about China, Chinese New Year, or the Lunar New Year.

What educators who have used this resource say about it:

♥ "Our class always celebrate the Chinese New Year. I particularly loved the sample writing levels in which I could guide the students towards better their writing skills when they wrote about their zodiac sign. It was a wonderful resource for teachers even with a rubric. This was the best purchase, hands down!" -- JoAnne H.

♥ "Excellent ESL resource!!! :) My student's loved the activities!" -- Ashley T.

♥ “It was so fun doing this lesson for Chinese New Year with my 6th and 7th graders. It worked in perfectly with the beginning of my opinion writing unit. And the information text was a great little comprehension activity. Thank you!” — Molly S.

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What you get in this product:

★ A Table of Contents for easy reference (2 pages)

★ A Notes to the Teacher section with background information (2 pages)

★ A list of ELA Common Core standards addressed (1 page)

★ 1 8.5" x 11" poster showing all 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac (1 page)

★ An information text about the Chinese zodiac, with comprehension questions and an answer key (3 pages)

★ An information text about the Chinese New Year, with comprehension questions and an answer key (3 pages)

★ 3 differentiated model paragraphs for the opinion writing task (3 pages)

★ Student pages for an opinion writing task about the Chinese zodiac, including a blank lined page if more space for writing is needed (13 pages)

★ An evaluation rubric for the opinion writing task (1 page)

More Info:

Start teaching about China with the 2 reading passages in this resource:

* A short information text about the Chinese Zodiac that can be read aloud to students or which they can read themselves, depending on their reading level.

* A 3-paragraph information text about the Chinese New Year holiday.

Comprehension questions accompany each reading passage on a separate page and can used for discussion or as a writing task. Both texts include answer keys.

Then let your students practice opinion writing with the animals of the Chinese zodiac activity. For each of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, there is 1 page with a photo of the animal and a short description of the characteristics of people born during that animal year. Every page also lists the years that each animal rules so you can easily find what animal year your students were born in. The task for your students, which is given on all the pages, is to write a paragraph stating whether they agree or disagree that the characteristics accurately describe them. Three model paragraphs at different levels of writing are included as guides for students. A rubric is provided so you can easily assess their students' work.

The last part of this Chinese New Year product is an 8.5" x 11" poster that shows all 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac. You can display it on a bulletin board, an interactive whiteboard or computer, or just use it as a cover page for these materials. The photos of the 12 animals were taken by me and come from an artifact I purchased in Xi'an, China, when I taught in China. The animals were created by a local artisan in a style of folk art from that region of China.

Although originally created for upper elementary and younger middle school students who are English Language Learners and native English speakers, these reading and writing activities have also been used successfully with older students in 7th and 8th grade.

As they say in Mandarin Chinese: Xin Nian Kuai Le -- Happy New Year!

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You might also like these products about China:

★ Chinese New Year Word Search Puzzles about the Zodiac

★ Chinese Zodiac Animals Clipart Based on Photographs

★ Chinese Zodiac Task Cards for Mechanics and Grammar

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Thank you and happy teaching!

Common Core Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved. Any claims of correlation or alignment to the CCSS Standards or WIDA ELD standards are solely those of The ESL Nexus and have not been evaluated or endorsed by the NGA. The ESL Nexus is the sole creator of this product and does not claim endorsement or association with the creators of the CCSS or WIDA standards.

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