Chinese New Year Lesson

• Attendance.  Teacher writes “Chinese New Year” on the board.  Asking students how to spell this first helps.

• What are the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac?  (They usually understand “Chinese New Year” a lot better).  Teacher writes on the board: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, pig.  Students recite.
• Do worksheet together, starting with the “story” half.  Foreign teacher reads one sentence, Chinese teacher translates it into Chinese.  It is good to give the Chinese Teachers some warning about this.
• Teacher passes out sheets of red paper for every student.  They make cards or envelopes for their friends.  Teacher writes some useful English phrases (i.e. “Happy New Year”) for them on the board.  The school can also buy gold paper, and I find it’s useful to bring a few pairs of scissors and sticks of glue along.
•  Students have 20 minutes to make cards.
• Teacher tells students to stand up, asking them questions about the story we read.  If they answer correctly they can sit down.