Teaching under an A/B semester schedule results in my history students not consistently attending class during the Lunar New Year celebrations. I wanted to share a post this week detailing the resources I use for my Chinese New Year lesson, allowing you to utilize them over the next two weeks and share these materials with others.

Lesson Plan

When I teach US History, I combine this activity with my holidays of the US and explain how immigrants and the cultures of different diasporas have shaped the celebrations in American History. This micro unit is usually part of my Immigration and late 1800s unit. When I teach World History, this lesson is part an introductory unit of cultures, calendars, and time lines to show how it is all measured differently in Western and Eastern cultures. If your ELA department teaches Julius Caesar, these lessons on calendars and events can be tied in with the historical events of the play.

The worksheet is meant to be a guided notes activity that follows the videos and discussion from class. Each January, I download and update the character image files for the pertaining year and add them to a Google slide deck of the videos I used in class. Depending on the amount of time, I talk about some of the design elements in Chinese characters and how the images relate to the forms they represent. I include some of the promo images from ShaoLin’s book Chineasy on the worksheet and included attribution. Her TedTalk on the importance of understanding Chinese culture made for a great conversation starter. 

The bulk of the lesson focuses on the myth surrounding the Chinese calendar and how it is used to develop relationships and for family planning. Students complete the two sided worksheet during one class period. If you plan on using the worksheet, be sure to update it with the proper images for the Chinese New Year you are studying.