Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year begins with the first new moon of the lunar calendar and marks the start of the new year in the traditional Chinese calendar. This year it lands on January 29th, 2025.

• Learn about the holiday, celebration, and good luck traditions that the protagonist learns from her Popo (grandmother) in this complete video reading of Popo’s Lucky Chinese New Year. Then try out some of the drawing, writing, and thinking activities and resources from Vooks.

• Explore titles and resources on these lists:

  • Celebrating Lunar New Year!
  • Stories for the Chinese New Year list.

• Fold your own origami Nian monster, using this activity guide, after watching the video book trailer and listening to the Meet-the-Illustrator Recording for The Nian Monster to learn more about this ancient Chinese folktale.

• Make a jigsaw puzzle of this colorful book cover for Chinese New Year Colors.

• Watch this video book reading excerpt for Sam and the Lucky Money, then use some questions from this lesson plan. Ask your students what they know about Chinese New Year and its customs. Continue the conversation by talking about what kind of gifts they like to give and receive, and, based on the video, how they think Sam will spend his lucky money.

• Enjoy learning about Lunar New year with this video book reading of Our Family Dragon: A Lunar New Year Story, then find festive coloring sheets and more on this book page.