Chinese New Year Themed Preschool Activity: Animal Sort and Match Game (Free Printable)

Matching pairs of characters

This January, we're learning about Chinese New Year. This is one more twist on the Chinese Animal Memory Game. For this activity, I also used the Chinese Zodiac Memory Game from here, which is basically just the pictures of twelve animals that correspond to the Chinese calendar. I also made Chinese character cards and English word cards for this activity. I made free printable cards with English words, Chinese characters and pinyin, and different combinations of the three to make it easier for anyone else who wanted to do this activity. They are available to you in A4 size and traditional Letter size PDFs. Your could just use this for an animal themed activity as well and take out any animals you don't want or need.

I also used some large flashcards that we already had with characters on one side and a picture, character, pinyin, and English on the other for them to sort and match, too. However, you could just as easily use only the small printable cards for matching.

Matching everything to pictures

Instead of playing this like a traditional memory game where you turn the card face down, leave all of the cards face up. Have a straight line at the top or bottom of cards that the child is supposed to find the other match too. You can do this with just the same pairs, like pictures and pictures, or different pairs, like pictures and words. Or you can have one complete set across the top and try to match all other depictions of the same animal, like a picture row across the top with all other forms of words to sort and match to the right picture mixed up below.

You can do this activity so many ways. Just choose which items you want to match (pictures to pictures, pictures to characters, pictures to everything, etc.) and print off the sheets you want. You could print these on regular paper and tape them onto cardboard like I did here, or you could simply print all of the sheets you want on cardstock that is thick and colorful enough that you could see through the backs.

The boys had fun with this activity. This one was a lot better for Andrew (2) than the other versions we tried. I think the actual memory game part of the others is still a little too hard for him at this point, but matching is fairly easy. He could easily match all of the pictures on his own and a couple of English words like cat and dog that he can read without difficulty. Andrew doesn't know any characters yet and couldn't figure out which ones were the same, so Aaron had to help him with those. This was still a good game for Aaron (3 1/2) and together with the other memory games we played, he learned four characters that he didn't know when we started in about 10 minutes. We'll have to do more of this type of game to help him learn more characters. I think with using the English card set only, this would be good practice for a child still learning to read English animal names as well.

Chinese New Year Themed Preschool Activity: Animal, Characters, and Words Memory Game (Free Printable)

This month, we're learning about Chinese New Year. This is a different twist on the Chinese Animal Memory Game. For this activity, I also used the Chinese Zodiac Memory Game from here, which is basically just the pictures of twelve animals that correspond to the Chinese calendar. I also made Chinese character cards and English word cards for this activity. I made free printable cards with English words, Chinese characters and pinyin, and different combinations of the three to make it easier for anyone else who wanted to do this activity. They are available to you in A4 size and traditional Letter size PDFs. Your could just use this for an animal themed activity as well and take out any animals you don't want or need.

You can do this activity so many ways. Just choose which items you want to match (pictures to pictures, pictures to characters, characters to characters, characters to English, etc.), print off the sheets you want, and play as a normal memory game.You could print these on regular paper and tape them onto cardboard like I did here, or you could simple print all of the sheets you want on cardstock that is thick and colorful enough that you can't see through the backs.

The boys had fun with this activity. It was a little too hard for Andrew (2), but he liked trying. This was a better challenge for Aaron (3 1/2) than the first memory game, and he learned four characters that he didn't know when we started in about 10 minutes. We'll have to do more of this type of game to help him learn more characters. I think with using the English card set only, this would be good practice for a child still learning to read English animal names as well.

Chinese New Year Themed Preschool Activity: Animal Memory Game

For this activity, I used the Chinese Zodiac Memory Game from here, which is basically just the pictures of twelve animals that correspond to the Chinese calendar. I just printed out two sheets of animals, cut them out, and tapes them onto colored cardboard that I upcycled.

You could just use this game for an animal unit study also, and even just take out the dragon if you don't like them. Actually, starting with smaller sets of animals is easier for young children than trying to do all twelve at first anyway. It seems easier to start smaller and add pairs as they (usually even more quickly than adults) master the game.

We actually did a bunch of variations on this activity, but the most basic way to play is like any memory game. Turn several pairs of cards face down, mix them up, and arrange them in a grid. Now have the player turn over cards two at a time, trying to find a matching pair. If the player doesn't turn over a matching pair they should try to remember what cards are where but return them face down. Then it is either another player's turn to turn two over to try to find a match or, if only one person is playing, the same player can just keep playing until he finds all of the matches himself.

The boys had fun with this activity. It was a little too hard for Andrew (2) and almost to easy for Aaron (3 1/2), but Aaron has been playing and mastering memory games for quite a while. I'll share more variations on this game soon.

Chinese New Year Themed Preschool Activity: Window Decorations Coloring

The boys received window crayons and markers for Christmas, and I think they are a really cool way to practice coloring and writing in a new and interesting way. And all you have to do to take down these decorations is wipe them off.

To help the boys learn about the different decorations and symbols used to celebrate Chinese New Year (known here as Spring Festival), I let the boys color some window decorations of their own. Red lanterns, red tassels, and the animal (2012 is the year of the dragon) to represent the new year are traditional decorations of this festival.

To do this activity, I just outlined some lanterns on the window one day and a dragon/dinosaur another day. Then I gave the boys each a yellow and red marker or crayon and let them color away. Decorations for Spring Festival are traditionally red and yellow. At the end of the day, we just washed the window off with vinegar water window cleaner, and we have a fresh canvas for new drawings.

We are talking to our boys about what these decorations traditionally mean here, and I think this is another easy activity to aid this discussion.

Chinese New Year Themed Preschool Activity: Coloring Chinese New Year Decorations

To help the boys learn about the different decorations and symbols used to celebrate Chinese New Year (known here as Spring Festival), I let the boys color some paper decorations of their own. We are talking to our boys about how we don't want to buy or put up a lot of real decorations for this holiday. (Chinese people think their pretty red decorations can keep bad luck away and bring good luck.) But this was a fun activity to help them understand a lot of the decorations going up all over.

Red lanterns, red tassels, and the animal to represent the new year are traditional decorations of this festival. This year is the year of the dragon, so there are dragons everywhere. Since they are everywhere here, we've been talking to the boys about how the stories with dragons in them could have come from people talking about dinosaurs, just using a different name. The boys love dinosaurs.

This activity is pretty simple. I just printed off some coloring sheets and gave the boys a bunch of red and yellow crayons, colored pencils, and markers. Red and yellow are the colors of their traditional decorations here. While we all colored, I talked to them about the decorations and what they mean, as well as the Chinese characters on some of the lanterns we colored and what they mean. I think this activity is a great way to discuss these decorations and the meaning behind them.

In case anyone is curious, the characters on the lanterns we colored mean "love" (ài, 爱) and "peace" (hépíng, 和平).

January Unit Study: Chinese New Year

I didn't blog much about our November and December school with the boys since we did less "official school." We had a wonderful time when my parents visited and celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas. We did a lot of special stuff together to get ready for, celebrate, and focus on the real meaning of the holidays, and those we're our "unit studies" for those months. There are so many things I appreciate about home schooling, but I think one of the best is how easily life and learning blend naturally through the day. And if we're too busy to do to much of anything, reading the Bible and spending time together as a family is plenty of learning for our little guys.

Anyway, we've already started doing some extra activities in January to learn even more about China and about Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is actually not called that in China. They call it Spring Festival. But it is China's biggest holiday. We're talking a bit about the origin of this festival and things they do to celebrate it with our boys. We're using some printouts from abcteach.com about China and Chinese New Year. We may also try some of these and other crafts. We also get to experience a lot of things like the amount of fireworks being lit off in a city first hand this year. I'll be writing more about individual activities and the celebration in general in the next few weeks.

Mandarin Mondays: Spring Festival (春节)

Spring Festival (Chūn jié, 春节), known as Chinese New Year in the West, does not officially begin until the evening of January 21st, but the preparations are already gearing up. All of the stores have special gifts on display. People are buying special food and gifts to take back on their journey to their hometowns. Everyone is cleaning their houses top to bottom to rid them of bad luck and decorating them with lots of red decorations to bring in good luck, and most women have new hairdos to start out the new year on the right foot.

And perhaps the part of the celebration that Spring Festival is most famous for, the fireworks (yān huā, 烟花) have already begun. People have already begun setting off firecrackers (fàng biān pào, 放鞭炮) and lighting off fireworks (fàng yān huā, 放烟花) throughout the day and into the night. It is a little noisy now, but I'm guessing next week will be really noisy. This will be our first Spring Festival in China, and I think it will be an interesting experience to see all of the celebrations that go along with their biggest holiday. I'll be writing more about the festival over the next few weeks.

Happy New Year! (xīnnián kuàilè!, 新年快乐！)

Mandarin Mondays: 国庆节

Beautiful Country

This week, China is celebrating its National Day (guó qìng jié, 国庆节). The official National Day is October 1st, which signifies when the People's Republic of China was declared a nation on October 1st, 1949. However, National Day here is a much bigger countrywide celebration than America's Independence Day, and they celebrate for a whole week long. This is one of China's two Golden Weeks (huáng jīn zhōu, 黄金周), week long holidays. The other Golden Week is the Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring festival (chūn jié, 春节).

During these Golden Weeks many, many people travel because it is the most time they get off in a row all year. So if you don't have to travel during these weeks, you may wish to stay home. Planes, trains, and buses will all likely be packed.

Much like America, traditional National Day celebrations include fireworks and concerts. In honor of National Day we are doing a China, or Middle Kingdom (zhōng guó, 中国), unit study for the month of October. I plan on sharing a few things we are learning about this fascinating country's history each Monday this month, so we can learn about it together.

Mandarin Mondays: 搅拌机

For our 4th anniversary, Nate wanted to get me something that I would use a lot. I told him that the thing I didn't have here yet that thought I would use the most would be a blender (jiǎo bàn jī, 搅拌机).Well he didn't want to pick out a blender for me by himself, so we went to Walmart together. I listened to the obligatory employees standing around the blender aisle trying to explain to me why such and such a blender was better other blenders. Well, I am sure I missed out on much of the sales pitch, but I did understand that the one, which had "three cups" (sān ge bēi, 三个杯), was supposed to be far superior to the jiǎo bàn jī with only one cup" (yī ge bēi, 一个杯). And something about this one's knives (dāo,刀) were better than that one's. Mostly I heard a whole lot of "this" (zhè ge, 这个) and "that" (nà gè, 那个). And of course, they highly recommended the most expensive product.

Literally stir mix machine

We figured that buying the cheapest one was asking for it to break within a week, so we ended up deciding on the mid-price model that had the "three cups" (sān ge bēi, 三个杯) and three blades. Now, if you want to purchase any electronics, you have to do so right there in that department, so we checked out there. The man gave us a regular old receipt that looks very similar to the ones in America, except for all of the characters of course, and we went downstairs to do the rest of our shopping.

However, Nate had learned in class recently that these common receipts that they give you at Walmart (and many other stores and restaurants here (some shops don't give out receipts at all)) are called shōu jù (收据), and they are not real receipts, and you can't use them to return an item. The official receipts are called fā piào (发票).  I am not really quite sure why they give fake ones, except to save money. You see, in order to print out a fā piào, the shop must pay the government to rubber stamp it, so they avoid a small fee by handing out shōu jù to the masses. You can get a fā piào, but you have to take your shōu jù to a special customer service desk.

Top: shōu jù, Bottom: fā piào

We decided to try to get a fā piào for the first time, since we wanted to be sure to have the option of returning the blender if it didn't work or ceased to function very quickly (which is extremely common here). So we headed over to the service desk and waited for a while. Then someone cuts in front of us with their own shōu jù, and finally he gets his fā piào, and we get our fā piào.
 

Mulberry Smoothie

The blender (jiǎo bàn jī, 搅拌机) has been working quite well so far, and now we can make lots more lemonade and smoothies and even make our own powdered sugar. But we'll be sure to hang on to our fā piào for the full 90 warranty period, just in case. Oh, and Nate also got me beautiful lilies, not just a blender for our anniversary, and I love both gifts and my husband infinitely more.

Mandarin Mondays: 烧烤

My stomach is still feeling the effects of Saturday's Chinese barbeque (烧烤 shāo kǎo), and the Fourth of July is coming up soon, so I thought it a good time to talk about barbecuing. Like a lot of things here, barbecuing is both similar and different to how we generally do things in America. Also, eating anywhere here has been referred to as a Chinese roulette: sometimes you get sick, and sometimes you don't; sometimes you know why, and sometimes you don't. So, it is possible that it was something other that this barbecue that made us sick.

My husband's school was hosting a barbecue at a lovely park on a lake southwest of the city. The park is beautiful. You can see mountains and the lake, and there are lovely gardens. There are also a lot of man-made tourist attractions and souvenir shops.


When we arrived, we went walking through the park and eventually found the shāo kǎo area, or as the sign says, "blarbacue tribe," and were told where to sit by Nate's teacher. The tables in this area have built-in barbecues, so your food is cooked right there in front of you. It is a convenient, but smoky, setup.

Now they do have hamburgers (hàn bǎo) and hot dogs (rè gǒu) in China, but you aren't likely to find these at a traditional shāokǎo. Actually, they are pretty rare anywhere outside a fast food place or western restaurant. At this barbecue, they served chicken wings (jī chì) and sliced pork (zhū ròu). By the way, the phrase "to eat chicken wings" in Chinese is "chī jī chì," in case you weren't confused enough already. They also had potatoes (tǔ dòu), onions (yáng cōng), and zucchini (xiǎo guā). So far, this is not too odd for barbecue food. Then they brought out some sort of breakfast cake, which didn't look at all like cake, and put that on the grill too. Last they brought out cold rice noodles (mǐ xiàn) in individual dishes. They didn't grill the noodles. Cold rice noodles are a famous local dish.

The food all tasted good and seemed to be cooked well. Shāo kǎo literally means "fire roast," and the food was cooked until incredibly hot, except for the local soy bean and spice sauce and cold noodle dish, which makes them the most likely suspects for tummy upset. The boys didn't see the need to eat for politeness' sake, so they didn't eat anything besides Pepsi and part of a banana. They are still doing fine, so perhaps there decision was wise.

We all had a great time walking in the woods and along the lake. The boys particularly enjoyed the large jungle gym there and throwing rocks into the lake. It was a beautiful day at the park, at least until Andrew filled his diaper and Aaron had a bathroom misadventure. Then is was time to head home.