Chinese New Year primary resource

This primary resource introduces children to a small part of Chinese culture, by examining the celebrations of Chinese New Year. Discover the event which takes place on the 5^thFebruary 2019, and the customs which help to mark the Year of the Pig in the Chinese Zodiac. Why does the new year begin on the 5th February this year? What does the colour red symbolize in the celebrations? How long does Spring Festival last?

Pupils will learn about how people celebrate Chinese New Year in our National Geographic Kids’ Culture primary resource sheet.

The teaching resource can be used in study group tasks for understanding aspects of Chinese New Year, as a printed handout for each pupil to review and highlight key information, or for display on the interactive whiteboard for class discussion.

Activity: Ask children to conduct their own research into the 12 different animals of the Chinese Zodiac. The class could be divided into 12 pairs or groups, with each group assigned one of the animals from the cycle. Pupils could also list the similarities and differences of this New Year’s festival compared to the New Year celebrations they’re used to taking part in. As a class,pupils could hold their own Chinese New Year festival, decorating the room in with red decorations and trying out some Chinese dancing and masks.

N.B. The following information for mapping the resource documents to the school curriculum is specifically tailored to the English National Curriculum and Scottish Curriculum for Excellence. We are currently working to bring specifically tailored curriculum resource links for our other territories; including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. If you have any queries about our upcoming curriculum resource links, please email: schools@ngkids.co.uk

This Culture primary resource assists with teaching the following History objectives from the National Curriculum:

• Gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

And the following Key Stage 1 Geography objectives from the National Curriculum:

• understand geographical similarities and differences through studying the human and physical geography of a small area of the United Kingdom, and of a small area in a contrasting non-European country.

This Culture primary resource assists with teaching the following Social studies objectives from the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence:

• broaden my understanding of the world by learning about human activities in the past and present.

Scottish Curriculum for Excellence Early level Social studies objectives:

• I am aware that different types of evidence can help me to find out about the world around me.

Scottish Curriculum for Excellence Early level Social studies objectives:

• I can discuss issues of the diversity of cultures, values and customs in our society.

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