Chinese New Year’s Matching Cards
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This year, the Chinese New Year starts on Sunday, January 22, 2023, and marks the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit. Since I think itis a great opportunity to use as a social studies lesson for your preschoolers, I’ve created these FREE Chinese New Year’s Matching Cards, which you can download at the end of this post.
The Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, is the most important festival in China because it marks the beginning of Spring and is a time when families come together.
It is also the most important event celebrated in other Asian countries, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, North Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Brunei, and in many Chinatowns in cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, and others. Here, you can see traditional decorations everywhere and enjoy firecrackers, colorful parades, and dragon dances. Read everything about its costumes, traditions, and beliefs HERE.
Importance of Matching Activities
Any matching activity gives preschoolers the chance to develop a wide range of skills that build the foundations for more advanced concepts, such as pre-reading skills, which they will need later.
Among the benefits that matching activities provide preschoolers, we can mention:
- The capacity to learn about early representation and problem-solving.
- Visual memory and discrimination.
- Identifying patterns, similarities, differences, and relationships between objects.
- One-to-one correspondence.
- Fine motor skills.
- Matching letters and sounds.
- Visual discrimination to connect prints and real objects to print.
- Understand when things go together and why.
- Language, vocabulary, and concentration.
- Find their place in the world and understand categories.
The Chinese New Year’s Matching Cards
This printable includes six pages with four cards each, for a total of twenty-four cards, each with a different picture related to the upcoming Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rabbit. Twelve of these cards are in color, and the other twelve are black-and-white mirrors of those pictures.
This low-prep activity will require just a few materials and steps to prepare it, which are:
- Download the free printable at the end of this post.
- Printer.
- White paper or cardstock.
- Laminator and laminating sheets.
- Scissors or paper cutter.
Print the pages on white paper or cardstock, cut them out, and laminate them for durability. Have the children match the colorful pictures with their black-and-white mirrors. You can also use these cards to play a memory-matching game, having the children place the cards upside down and try to find the matching pair. Take your children’s different levels of development and use all or fewer cards accordingly.
Books About the Chinese Culture
As usual, I recommend filling out your library, centers, and book baskets to help children understand Chinese Culture a little. Below, you can find a big selection of books related to the Chinese New Year. You can find these books at your local library, in used bookstores, and on Amazon. I also added affiliate links to every book in the list below to make it easier to get the ones you want.
- Chinese New Year for Kids by Cindy Roberts.
- Dim Sum for Everyone by Grace Lin.
- Celebrating Chinese New Year: History, Traditions, and Activities by Eugenia Chu.
- Dragon Dance – A Chinese New Year by Joan Holub.
- Fortune Cookie Fortunes by Grace Lin.
- Holidays Around the World: Celebrate Chinese New Year: With Fireworks, Dragons, and Lanterns by Caroline Otto.
- Grandfather Tang’s Story by Ann Tompert.
- Happy, Happy Chinese New Year by Demi Hitz.
- My First Chinese New Year by Karen Katz.
- Lanterns and Firecrackers – A Chinese New Year Story by Jonny Zucker.
- Lion Dancer by Kate Waters.
- Bringing In the New Year by Grace Lin.
- Moonbeams, Dumplings, and Dragon Boats by Nina Simonds.
- One Is a Drummer: A Book of Numbers by Roseanne Thong.
- Round Is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Thong.
- Ruby’s Wish by Shirin Yim Bridges.
- Sam and the Lucky Money by Karen Chinn.
- The Dancing Dragon by Marcia K. Vaughan.
- Celebrating Chinese New Year: Nick’s New Year by Rosa Drew.
- The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop.
- The Runaway Rice Cake by Ying Chang Compestine.
- This Next New Year by Janet S. Wong.
- Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel.
Pin It For Later
If you are in a rush and don’t have time to read the post and download the printable but want to save it for later, pin this to one of your Pinterest boards.
I hope you enjoy these ideas and that they help you have fun celebrating Chinese New Year with your preschoolers. To get the FREE Chinese New Year’s Matching Cards, click on the link below and enter your information for an immediate download.
Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.
Love,
P.S. Please let me know if this printable worked for you, or if you think I should add or replace something so I can help you better next time.
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