Explore the 12 Chinese Zodiac Animals: Fun Chinese Activities for Kids
Chinese New Year is a perfect time to introduce children to the fascinating traditions and stories of the Chinese Zodiac. The 12 animals each carry unique characteristics, making them an exciting topic for young Chinese learners.
Here are some fun activities to help your kids learn more about these 12 amazing animals!
1. Reading Stories of the 12 Zodiac Animals
Let’s start with the timeless tale of the 12 Zodiac animals! According to legend, the Jade Emperor (玉皇大帝 yù huáng dà dì) hosted a Great Race to decide which animals would represent each year in the Zodiac cycle. Your kids will love learning how the sly rat, kind-hearted ox, and the other Zodiac animals earned their places.
You can read books or play a read-aloud video to introduce this beloved story.
Books:
2. Learning Chinese Characters for the Zodiac Animals
Here are 4 engaging activities for your Chinese learners to practice the Chinese characters.
Chinese Character Tracing:
Start with the Chinese character tracing activity to help kids learn how to write characters like 鼠 (rat), 牛 (ox), and 虎 (tiger), etc. This hands-on practice builds confidence in recognizing and writing these important characters in the correct stroke order. To make it more hands-on, kids can use Play-Doh to build the characters.
Reading a Chinese Mini-Book:
Use this mini book to teach the order of the 12 Zodiac animals. Your Chinese learners can read along to reinforce their learning while enjoying the story behind the sequence. Each page follows a simple sentence structure such as “鼠第一，牛第二”. It’s a perfect blend of literacy and culture for emergent Chinese readers!
Chinese Zodiac Matching Puzzles:
Make Chinese learning hands-on and engaging with a fun matching puzzle game! Prepare a set of cards—some featuring the Chinese characters (鼠, 牛, 虎, etc.) and others showing pictures of the corresponding zodiac animals. Students will match each character to the correct animal, saying the names aloud as they play to reinforce pronunciation.
For an added challenge, mix things up by timing them to see how fast they can complete the matches. You can also turn it into a memory game where kids flip over cards to find a match.
This puzzle set is included in our Chinese Zodiac resource.
Chinese Zodiac Board Games:
Make character recognition fun with an interactive board game! Students take turns rolling the dice and saying the name of the Zodiac animal they land on. For advanced learners, challenge them to write the Chinese character on a recording sheet each turn. This is a fun way to reinforce vocabulary and Chinese writing skills!
3. 12 Zodiac Crafts
Get creative with crafts to make learning about the Zodiac animals exciting and unforgettable! These simple activities are perfect for both classroom and at-home fun.
Zodiac Animal Crowns:
Let your kids craft their very own Zodiac animal crowns with our printable templates! After coloring and cutting out their chosen animal, use a sentence strip to measure their head size and staple the crown to fit perfectly. Once their crowns are ready, they can wear them to bring the Great Race story to life—guaranteed fun and excitement!
Zodiac Wheel:
Create a spinning Zodiac wheel featuring all 12 animals with our template. Your kids can point the arrow to their Zodiac or give it a spin and explore fun facts about the animal it lands on! For an interactive twist, have them play with a partner: one person spins while the other calls “stop” to check if the picture and Chinese word match.
4. My Chinese Zodiac Writing Activities in Chinese
Help your Chinese learners connect personally with the Chinese Zodiac by writing about their own sign! This activity combines self-expression with Chinese writing practice.
You can provide simple sentence frames to guide them such as:
我出生在 _______年。 (I was born in the year ______.)
我今年 _______ 岁。 (I am ______ years old this year.)
我属 _______ 。 (My Zodiac animal is ______.)
Your Chinese learners can decorate their writing with drawings of their Zodiac animal or other Lunar New Year symbols.
5. Bringing the Story to Life: A Zodiac Role Play
What’s more exciting than acting out the story of the 12 Zodiac?! Let’s turn your classroom into the Great Race! Assign each student a role, and let them act out the legendary race. It’s a lively, interactive way to teach the story while getting kids to speak Chinese, move, and have fun! They can even perform the play for parents at your school’s Lunar New Year celebration!
You can get all the Chinese learning materials about 12 Zodiac in our shop or TeachersPayTeachers store.
Exploring the 12 Chinese Zodiac animals is not just an engaging way to celebrate Chinese New Year but also an opportunity to teach kids about Chinese culture, language, and traditions. Whether you’re learning through storytelling, crafting, or playing games, we hope these activities will help bring the magic of the Chinese Zodiac to life for your young learners.
Happy New Year! 春节快乐！