Happy Wednesday!

What year were you born in?

Use this chart to find out which Chinese new year animal you are!

Talking Together

This new year will be the Year of the Ox. An ox is like a big bull with big horns. They are very strong and hardworking animals.

The ox nearly won the race, didn't he? Can you remember what happened?

• Why didn't he win?
• Who did win the race?
• Do you think that was fair?
• You could say the rat was very clever but does that make it fair that he was the winner? What do you think?
• How many animals were there in the race?
• I wonder if you can remember the names of the different animals? You can always listen to the story again to help you!

Mathematics

Can you remember the number we are learning about this week?

Count the Chinese lanterns to find out!

That's right! Number 5

Let's do lots of counting to 5!

Can you...

• Clap 5 times
• Do 5 jumps
• Count and hold up 5 fingers
• Do 5 hops
• Find 5 shoes
• Find 5 doors in your house
• Draw 5 lines
• Draw 5 circles

Busy Fingers

These activities are for you to do over the next few days.

Wouldn't it be great if we had our own Chinese New Year celebration! Maybe we could all do that on Friday from our own houses! Over the next couple of days we need to make some things that we can use for our celebration. We could make some decorations for our houses and even help to do some cleaning and tidying! Abbie went to a dragon parade. Let's have our own dragon parade! We will need a dragon and a drum. Watch these videos below to give you some ideas of how to make them.

Make a Chinese Lantern

For this Chinese lantern design, you need to fold your piece of card in half, lengthways. Use a pair of scissors to cut lines along the fold, as shown in the photograph. It’s important to not cut all the way across, as if you do your lantern will fall into pieces.

You could draw lines on the card for your child to follow, or they can cut just by using their eyes to guide them. It’s not essential to cut in perfectly straight lines, or to space them out exactly, so encourage your child to have a go with the scissors.

Then you need to open out your card and roll your lantern up so that the two shorter sides meet. We fixed ours with sticky tape, but a stapler is good too. Add a handle on the top so you can hang up your lantern. 

Busy Bodies

Chinese New Year Animal Movement Game

How To Play

The idea behind this card game is to help you and your child to get more active. You can play the game in a few different ways. Print and cut out the cards below or, if you don't have a printer, with your child draw pictures of the different animals. Talk together about how the different animals move. Play some music by following the link below as you play the game.

Version 1: Hold up a card and ask your child to move like that animal until you change it to a different card.

Version 2: Shuffle the cards, deal out 5 cards laying face down, flip over each card and act out the animal action.

Version 3: Shuffle the cards, set deck face down, flip a card and act out the animal action. Do this until you have made it through each card.