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    Looking for a few clever and crafty ways for your students to ring in and learn about the Lunar New Year? From books and crafts to ready-to-go resources, here’s everything you need to engage students in enriching, festive holiday learning fun. Plus, check out nine more books to celebrate the Lunar New Year. 

    Festive Lunar and Chinese New Year Reads

    1.     Bringing in the New Year (Grades PreK–1)

    In Bringing in the New Year, a Chinese-American family preps for an awesome Lunar New Year celebration. From cleaning to making dumplings, the family can’t wait for the fireworks, lion dancers, shining lanterns, and the extra-long dragon parade that marks this festive holiday.

    2.     PoPo's Lucky Chinese New Year (Grades 1–3)

    In this intergenerational picture book about the Lunar New Year, a granddaughter learns just what it means to ring in the Chinese New Year with family.

    3.     The New Year Dragon Dilemma (Grades 3–5)

    In this mystery centered around a Chinese New Year celebration in San Francisco, young readers have to follow a series of intriguing clues to help Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose find Miss Chinatown’s crown. 

    Clever Crafts to Celebrate the Lunar New Year

    4.     Lunar New Year Fish Craft

    Help students ring in the Lunar New Year with this colorful good luck craft!

    What you need:

  • Paper bags, one per student
  • Scissors
  • Stapler
  • Pencils
  • Red and yellow construction paper
  • Glue
  • Red, yellow, and gold ribbons
  • Googly eyes

What you do:

  • Ask your students to trace a fish shape onto a paper bag. The flap of the bag will be the mouth, so it can flap open and shut like a real fish mouth. Next, instruct students to cut out the fish.
  • Have the students trace their fish shape onto the red and yellow construction paper and cut out both shapes.
  • Next, ask students to glue the red fish to one side of the paper bag shape and the yellow fish to the other side.
  • Now, instruct students to glue googly eyes to both the red and the yellow sides of the fish.
  • Finally, encourage students to decorate their fish with ribbons and strips of construction paper to add scales, tails, or any other festive details!
  • Ready-to-Go Resources to Ring in the Lunar New Year With Ease

    5.     Chinese New Year: A Winter Holidays Unit

    This Lunar New Year lesson makes it easy to celebrate the Lunar New Year in your classroom. Covering the history of the holiday and important symbols marking the occasion, this ready-to-go resource features lion and dragon mask crafts, a mini-play and poem, a zodiac parade activity, and more.

    6.     Lunar New Year's Dragon: Winter Art Project

    With this Lunar New Year’s dragon craft, students have the chance to create their own symbol of health and prosperity.

    7.     Lunar New Year (Strong Verbs): Poetry Frame

    With this poetry frame, students learn new verbs and celebrate the holiday by crafting creative poems about the Lunar New Year.

    From dragon crafts for health and prosperity, to full lessons devoted to the holiday, Scholastic Teachables has all the ready-to-go resources you need to teach your students about the Lunar New Year. These teaching tools and resources are free to subscribers of Scholastic Teachables or are available for individual purchase. Log in or subscribe today to ring in the Lunar New Year with these fun and engaging lessons. Happy Lunar New Year!