Chinese New Year Topic Theme planning ideas EYFS and Pre-school

by Little Miss Lizzy in Holidays, January 16, 2012

Are you planning a Chinese New Year themed topic in your early years setting? It is nearly upon us and this means that Nursery and Reception classes or EYFS units will be keen to plan a range of activities to help young children in the EYFS to learn and understand more about the Chinese culture. These are ideas for teachers and EYFS practitioners to help you deliver your Chinese celebrations topic theme.

This year is very special for Chinese people as they are celebrating the year of the dragon. This will mean that teachers and practitioners will want to cover specific activities related to the dragon in addition to those other opportunities that are related in general to Chinese New Year, China and the Chinese people.

Planning Chinese New Year – a themed Early Years topic

It is important to prepare EYFS children for a topic on Chinese New Year, before the actual event. Some schools and teaching staff can feel pressured into fitting Chinese theme into one day because of the pressure of covering the literacy and numeracy parts of their curriculum.

Preparing the children in the lead up to Chinese New Year is crucial in order for it to be meaningful and serve a purpose. As a festival, it spans over a few days although it used to last a lot longer – up to four weeks.

Begin the Year of the Dragon theme by looking at a globe or map of the world and locating China. This will set the scene for EYFS children as they begin to understand that the world is a very big place and that there are many things that happen in our world that we can learn about.

Of course, we understand that Geography is very hard to grasp for young children – particularly if they have not experienced any type of travel outside of their own experience. Chinese New Year is an opportunity to embrace a whole new culture and way of life for a few days and is sure to bring about curiosity and excitement.

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You may be lucky and live in a town or city which has a Chinese community or a China Town. You may be even luckier to have some children whom Chinese or Cantonese is their home language and who will add a very real advantage when it comes to sharing their own knowledge and firsthand experience.

If this is the case, then try to plan a visit or a trip to a Chinese bakery, supermarket or China town itself.

Maybe you have a Chinese organisation in your area that would be prepared to send some dancers, a dragon or other entertainment to your Nursery or school. This would be a truly excellent way to get the children interested and talk about what they have seen.