Chinese New Year Lesson Plan

It can be difficult to find a good Chinese New Year lesson plan for middle school students. I see a lot of crafts and picture books when I search for lessons, and I wanted to put together a resource that would help students understand more about this holiday.

Chinese New Year Background Information

Chinese New Year (also called Lunar New Year) is an important holiday for many people worldwide. This is also known as the Spring Festival in China. It is celebrated by one-sixth of the world’s population. Celebrations take place in most East Asian and Southeast Asian countries and other places worldwide, such as Vancouver and New York. It is celebrated for fifteen days, sometime in January or February, depending on the moon.

Classroom Application

In my classroom, I try to ensure that we celebrate and/or acknowledge various global holidays and celebrations. We must not only focus on North American holidays such as Halloween, Christmas, and Easter.

In middle school, we celebrate holidays by learning about their historical significance. This Chinese New Year Lesson Plan I created is focused on a non-fiction article. Students learn about the history of Chinese New Year and important foods and traditions.

I use non-fiction articles weekly in my classroom to help students build background knowledge about the world. I use the Article of the Week format to work with these weekly non-fiction articles.

In this Chinese New Year lesson plan, students work on their pre and post-reading strategies by using graphic organizers and comprehension questions.

Chinese New Year Lesson Plan

Have students complete a K-W-L graphic organizer about this holiday.
Watch a background information video on the Chinese New Year. This will help students who struggle with reading comprehension activate their prior knowledge. Here are some video suggestions: Lunar New Year for Kids | Educational Video and How different cultures celebrate the New Year.
Read the Chinese New Year comprehension article.
Complete the comprehension questions.
Complete the multiple-choice standardized test prep format questions (paper or self-grading Google Form options).
Have students return to their K-W-L graphic organizer and complete the last column.
In the next class period, have students complete a follow-up writing assignment. Depending on the grade level, you may ask students to write a paragraph or an essay.
If time permits, have students read over this article Nike’s Chinese New Year 2023 Collection Will Include A Colorful, Rabbit-Adorned Dunk Low. You can edit this article using the Google Extension Print Friend and PDF. You can learn more about that in this blog post, Support Digital Learning with Print Friendly and PDF.

Want to purchase this Chinese New Year lesson plan ready to print and go?

Chinese New Year Non-Fiction Article: This Chinese New Year lesson plan contains 1 non-fiction article and 3 reading activities to assist with reading comprehension, standardized test prep (EQAO), and cross-curricular learning. Find this resource on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD.

Resource Includes

Teacher lesson plan
Pre-reading K-W-L chart
Non-fiction article (with and without photos)
3 Post-reading activities: comprehension questions, grammar questions (2 options: paper and self-grading Google Forms), long answer writing response
Individual PDFs of student pages to assist with online learning i.e. Google Classroom
Google Slides formatted lessons for 1:1 schools