Chinese New Year Pathfinder

"Gung Hay Fat Choy!" or Happy New Year! is a traditional greeting heard during the Chinese New Year celebration. This celebration marks a new beginning, as well as a new planting season, for China. The New Year celebration is filled with traditions and symbolism. The cleaning of homes symbolizes sweeping out the old and welcoming the new. Homes are decorated with scrolls, flowers, and New Year fruits such as apples and oranges. The color red is a symbol of good luck and oranges stand for good fortune. Traditionally, the holiday is a time for families to share foods, gifts, and best wishes for the new year. Dances, fireworks and a traditional dragon (a symbol of strength and goodness) parade also accompany the celebration. This pathfinder can guide you to resources that will help you learn about and prepare to teach a unit on the Chinese New Year.

Celebrating the Holiday

Celebrating the new year by dancing and tantalizing the lion with a ball.

Textbooks

Curr/Sec SocSci Hist
S368
1985
tx2 China by Daniel Chu is a
textbook that discusses every aspect of
Chinese life. Of note are pages 93-96
which discuss in detail the holidays that the Chinese people celebrate.

Curr/El SocStu
A244
1997
Gr. 6 World, Adventures in Time and Place by James Bandls is a textbook which discusses the
the dynasties, the development of a written language around 1100 BC and the influence of Confucianism had in shaping life in China. Textbook series includes a video tape discussing the everyday life in China

Reference

Curr/Ref ActBks L767 1990 A Book for All Seasons by Greta Barclay Lipson explains the Chinese Lunar Calendar, lists the zodiac animals by year and provides an activity for writing your own Chinese Horoscope.

Curr/Ref
SocStu W121 p.96-100 Joining Hands by Rahima Carol Wade. Suggests lower elementary teaching activities for learning about the Chinese New Year including the preparation for the holiday, the Reunion Dinner, the traditional game of rock, scissors, and paper and the gift of red packages.

Curr/Ref
ActBks
P778
1983 p.108-9 The Whole Earth Holiday Book by Linda Polon and Aileen Cantwell gives basic information about Chinese New Year and includes a crossword puzzle based on the information.

Modern pictures of
New Year’s preparation

Rice is a staple food in Asia
and an important part of the food used
in the New Years celebration.
Periodicals

“Gung Hay Fat Choy.” Creative Classroom. Jan/Feb. 1990, pg. 12-13. A one page summary of the holiday with a math activity to fill in the Chinese Zodiac calendar.

“Celebrating the Chinese New Year.” The New Good Apple Newspaper. Jan/Feb. 1994, pg. 13-15. The high points of the article are the direction for making a Chinese dragon from an egg carton and a paper lantern from construction paper

Picture File

Posters and Learning Charts about Chinese New Years are available in the Poster File. Look in the Social Studies section for appropriate items.

Internet Sites

http://www.new-year.co.uk/Chinese/
Menu items include the history behind the celebration, the year
of the tiger, send a virtual card or crack open a virtual fortune
cookie. http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/chineseny.html
This site designed especially for kids includes crafts, stories, clip art, patterns, and printables relating the the Chinese New Year.

http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/Byrnes-celebrations/chinese.html
Background information, lesson objectives, activities
and a list of additional reference materials makes this
an ideal site for any teacher. http://www.chinascape.org/index/Culture/Holidays/Chinese_New_Year/
A Chinese web index with a list of sites on the subject.

Emperor Yong Le’s early 15th century Ming lion with it’s Song counterpart. The Lion-Dance is usually connected with the Feast of Lanterns at the New Years celebration. During the Tang Dynasty, acrobats wore wooden lion masks and had tails made of threads.
The eyes were gold, the teeth silver. The dance was accompanied by music.

Celebrating through
Language Arts and Literature

Curr/Ref LangArt S127 1993 .	Exploring Ethics through Children's Literature--Book 1 by Elizabeth BairdSeaenger. The story “The May and the Magic Brush emphasizes humility and kindness triumphing over greed and power through perseverance, skill, and magic in this brief, surprising, even funny, traditional Chinese tale. This book gives lesson plans for an ethics discussion after reading this book.	A Chinese Herb Girl	Curr/Ref LangArts S949 v. 1	Literature Activities for Young Children by Dianna Sullivan. “The Story about Ping is a story of a duck who lives in a boat on the Yangtze river. He does not get back on the boat one night and this begins many adventures before he returns home. These lesson plans include activities such as buttermilk and chalk duck painting, duck rhythm movements, sculpture and a visit to a pet store.
Curr/Ref LangArts M693 1991	Teaching with Caldecott Books by Christine Boardman Moen. The story “Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China is a dramatic picture book with art that combines techniques used in ancient Chinese panel art with a powerful contemporary palette of watercolors and pastels. This book on page 157 provides lesson plans for comparison and contrast activities and beginning to write Chinese.	A Chinese Herb Girl	Curr/Ref LangArts O23 1990	Wiggle Your Words by Alison Odell (p. 18- 20). The most sophisticated use of ideograms is found in Chinese characters. The symbols represent what the word means. This source lists activities that use ancient Chinese pictographs as well as other great ideas.

Children's Books

Children 398.2 Y71l	Lon Po Po : a Red-Riding Hood story from China translated by Ed Young. An award-winning read-aloud book with interesting illustrations.	Children 133.5 Y71c	Cat and Rat by Ed Young. This beautifully illustrated legend tells how the Chinese zodiac came to be. It is also the story of Cat and Rat and why they will always be enemies.
Children 398.2 D378d	The Dragon’s Tale and Other Animal Fables of the Chinese Zodiac by Demi. A wise dragon teaches that the more you know, the more you know there is to know is one of the fables richly illustrated about the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac.	Curr/Ref LangArts T472 1991	Tikki Tikki Tembo is a classic tale of the Chinese boy with the long name who falls into a well and is finally rescued. This resource suggests relating the books theme to their own name and activities to support that idea.
Children Easy D617C	Chinese New Year by Resi Ditzel. A simple introduction to the activities that take place during the celebration.	Children 394.2 C518c	The Chinese New Year is a fun book introducing the the preparation and activities of the two week long celebration.
Children 394.2 K29h	Happy New Year by Emily Kelley describes the way in which the new year is celebrated throughout the world, often on other days than January 1st. The Chinese New Year is the focus of one of the chapters. A great compare and contrast book.	Children Fic B622f	The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Bishop is a classic tale of family love and support. In the story each brother is willing to give his life for the other.

Celebrating through Math

The seven-piece tangram puzzle originated in China where it enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the early 1800’s. Due to the emphasis on learning concepts of mathematics through the use of manipulative materials coupled with the natural fascination of puzzles, it is no surprise that the tangram puzzle has become a popular classroom activity.
Curr/Ref Math S521 1971	Tangramath by Dale Seymour. Many aspects of Tangrams lead to the discovery or discussion of concepts such as size, shape, congruence, similarity, properties of polygons, symmetry and areas.	Curr/Ref Math B798 1993	Math through Children’s Literature by Kathryn L. Braddon introduces tangrams by telling the story entitled Grandfather Tang’s Story. Grandfather Tang uses his tangram pieces to tell a story about the fox fairies. The fox fairies are an important part of Chinese folklore. Suggested activities follow.
Cur/Ref Math S659 1996 p. 7	Agnesis to Zeno by Sanderson Smith. The Pascal’s triangle has been clearly established as being used in China over 300 years before Pascal was born. See the Chinese version entitle Siyuan yujian (Precious mirror of the four elements) as well as other vignettes about the math contributions from China.	Curr/TA Math 99	Tangram manipulatives--enough for the whole class to have a set.

Credits for illustrations, photos and their descriptions:

Juliano, Annette L. Treasures of China. Richard Marek Publisher: NY, 1981.
Eberhard, Wolfram. A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols. Roatledge: London, l986.

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Last updated 05/14/02

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http://www.new-year.co.uk/Chinese/ Menu items include the history behind the celebration, the year of the tiger, send a virtual card or crack open a virtual fortune cookie.	http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/chineseny.html This site designed especially for kids includes crafts, stories, clip art, patterns, and printables relating the the Chinese New Year.
http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/Byrnes-celebrations/chinese.html Background information, lesson objectives, activities and a list of additional reference materials makes this an ideal site for any teacher.	http://www.chinascape.org/index/Culture/Holidays/Chinese_New_Year/ A Chinese web index with a list of sites on the subject.

Emperor Yong Le’s early 15th century Ming lion with it’s Song counterpart. The Lion-Dance is usually connected with the Feast of Lanterns at the New Years celebration. During the Tang Dynasty, acrobats wore wooden lion masks and had tails made of threads. The eyes were gold, the teeth silver. The dance was accompanied by music.