This multi-level, Chinese New Year activity set, with a Language Arts theme, is awesome! It is brand new and in excellent condition! I laminated the materials, so they could be used with a fine-tip dry erase marker and then wiped clean with a cloth or tissue, so they could be reused! This set comes from a smoke free home.
I received this set at an elementary school, Language Arts inservice for teachers. It has activities for children in Grades 1-3, and consists of 11 sheets that measure 8.5" x 11", a set of 16 sentence cards that measure 3.2" x 1", and a header for one activity that measures 8.5" x 2". I did color in images, on 2 of the pages, with colored pencils.
The "Chinese New Year Sentence Scramble" is illustrated with an image of a red Chinese lantern on the left side of the black title and a boy, dressed in his Chinese New Year best, who is holding a small red Chinese flag, on the right. Below the title are directions. Underneath that are 4 lines, each having 4-7 words below them. Children have to put the words, in the proper order, to make a sentence and record them on the lines.
The "Chinese New Year Spelling Word Questions" sheet is illustrated with a pair of red money envelopes, a boy and girl dressed up in their Chinese New Year best, and the head of a dragon. Below the black title are directions and a word bank. Underneath that are 10 fill-in-the-blank sentences. Children have to select the word, from the "bank", that completes each sentence and record it in the blank.
The "Word Hunt" has a place for children to print their name, date, and class (if applicable) up at the top. Below that are red images of boys and girls holding letter cards that spell out "Happy Chinese New Year" in capital letters. The "H" was left out in "Chinese", so I corrected it by making a caret and inserting it. I have enclosed a closeup photo of this. On both the right and left side of "Word Hunt" are images of red Chinese lanterns. This word search was formed on a grid, so individual letters are in boxes. This page has the name of the site, from which it came, in light gray letters that go diagonally through the grid, but this should not have an impact on a child's ability to complete it. On the bottom of the grid are images of Chinese New Year items (sets of red lanterns, red fans, dragon heads, Chinese temples, a yellow Chinese Yuan gold coin). On the left and right side of the grid are images of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac. At the bottom of this page is a word bank of animals that children have to find. To complete this, I would have children use a different color for each word they find, and color in the letter boxes. All words are either found by going across or down.
There are 3 exercise sheets that focus on the skill of alphabetical order. Two completely focus on that skill. The other page includes another exercise. One sheet, that has alphabetical order as its main focus, has a yellow border around it and "Alphabetical order", in white letters, within a red box. Below this, "Chinese New Year" is written in black. Underneath that is a set of directions and a gray "bank" with black words which are associated with Chinese New Year. Below that are 15 numbered blanks in 3 columns of 5. Children have to put the words, in alphabetical order, and record them on the lines. On this sheet, there are 2 sets of 3 words that all begin with the same letter, so children have to be able to alphabetize words up to the 3rd letter. At the bottom of this page is an image of a red, yellow, and gold dragon. On the left side of this image, there were directions that said, "Color the picture". Since I colored it to make the page more appealing to children, I covered this direction up with a piece of white correction tape.
The second sheet, whose only focus is alphabetical order, has a place for children to print their name, date, and class (if applicable) up at the top. Below that are directions written in red. Within the directions is an image of a cute green caterpillar, as "Friend Creative Caterpillar" is there to help children put words in alphabetical order. Underneath the directions is a "bank" with words in boxes. Below that is a numbered list with 12 blanks. This list also has the name of the site, from which it came, in light gray letters that go diagonally through it. But, again, this should not have an impact on a child's ability to complete the list. Children have to put the words in alphabetical order, and record them on the lines. On this sheet, there are 4 words that all begin with the same letter (2 of which have the same first 2 letters), so children have to be able to alphabetize words up to the 3rd letter. At the bottom of this page is a red message from Friend Creative Caterpillar, whose image is seen in the middle of it.
Another sheet, that has an exercise on alphabetical order, has an image of a standing boy, in a red and gold Chinese outfit, who is peeking out from under a dragon costume. At the top of this page, "Match the Syllables: Chinese New Year Words" is printed in bold black letters. Underneath that, there are directions. Below this, there is a box with 10 words broken up into 2 syllables. The column on the left has the first syllable of words that relate to Chinese New Year. In the next column, there is a mixed up list of second syllables. Following each second syllable is an arrow that points to a blank line. In this exercise, children have to match up the first syllable of a word to its second syllable, and then record the words on the lines. This exercise has a sample. Two syllables have been matched, but children need to record the full word on the line across from the first syllable. The second half of this page deals with alphabetical order. Directions are up above a box that has a "bank" of 15 words on the left and numbered sections on the right. Children have to put the words in alphabetical order and record them on the lines. Here, children only need to focus on alphabetizing by the first letter.
There is another sheet that has 2 different exercises on it. The first exercise is illustrated with an image of 3 red Chinese lanterns. Directions are above a "bank", bordered in blue, that has words in bold black text. Below that are 10 numbered sentences of a fill-in-the-blank format. Children have to read the sentences, chose the correct word from the "bank", and print it in the blank space. The second half of this page, is illustrated with a scene from a parade. A little girl, holding cymbals, has a blue dragon on her right and a yellow one on her left. Below the directions for this exercise is a secret code of capital letters (A-Z) with numbers below them (1-26). Underneath the code, are a series of blanks with numbers under them. Children need to use the code to fill in the blanks and figure out the secret Chinese New Year message.
Another sheet involves 4 different exercises that deal with the Chinese zodiac. It is titled "Chinese New Year" and has the year, in Chinese writing, below it. The title is written in black, within a white box, that has another pink box surrounding it. On both sides of the box are pairs of red money envelopes. There is another pair of these envelopes in the bottom right-hand corner of the page. Below the title is the first exercise, which has a red one in a white box that is outlined in red. Next to the number is a white box, with black text, that has another pink box surrounding it. Here, children read about the animals that make up the Chinese zodiac. They then are asked a question and have to record their answer in a blank space. This exercise is illustrated with a cute, standing, orange tiger and pink pig. Exercise 2 has a yellow number in a white box that is outlined in yellow. Next to the number is a white box, with black text, that has another pink box surrounding it. Here, children are shown a list of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. After each animal, there are 1-2 adjectives that describe it. Below the list, children are asked which adjectives are good and which are bad. As there are no further directions than this, I would suggest having children circle the good adjectives in one color and the bad in another. This exercise is illustrated with a cute, standing, green dragon with yellow horns. The next exercise is designated with a blue number in a white box that is outlined in blue. This exercise is an extension of exercise 2. Here, there are 2 pink boxes. One is titled "Good" in white text. The other is titled "Bad" in white text. Though there are no directions here, I assume that children have to record some of the good and bad adjectives from the exercise above. The last exercise has a red 4 in a white box that is outlined in red. Below it is a white box asking children which animal adjectives describe them. The directions say to "Write sentences in your book.". An example of a sentence is then given. As children have no "book", they can simply write their sentences on the back of the page.
The "Comparing New Years", Venn Diagram exercise consists of 4 parts (a mat, 16 sentence cards, answer key, header). The header is is black and white. "Comparing New Years" is printed in bold, black Chinese-looking text. Underneath this, "American and Lunar New Years Facts" is printed in black. To the right of this is an image of a Venn Diagram. The mat is titled "Comparing New Years" and in also printed in a Chinese-looking black font. On the left side of the title is an image of a black and gold dragon. On the right, "Happy New Year" is written, in black, with an assortment of colored confetti and streamers. Below the dragon is a circle titled "Lunar". Under the "Happy New Year" image is another circle titled "American". The 2 circles overlap in the middle. To set up this activity, the 16 sentence cards are laid out around the mat. Children then read each sentence. If it applies to the Lunar Chinese New Year, they put it in the appropriate circle. If the sentence applies to the American New Year, the put it in the other circle. If it applies to both, the sentence card is placed in the area where the circles overlap. Upon placing all of the cards on the mat, children use the "Comparing New Years Answer Key" to check their work. This sheet has a color code below the title. Under the code are the 16 sentence cards written in the appropriate color (blue for American, purple for Lunar, green for both). The sentence cards come in a snack-size ziploc bag for organizational purposes.
The last exercise in this set is titled "All About Chinese New Year Quick Quiz" in red. On the left side of the title is a red dragon. On the right side is a red Chinese lantern. This sheet is comprised of 9 boxes with borders in a pattern of dashes and dots. Each box has a question about Chinese New Year. Formats of questions include the following: open ended, multiple choice with an option of 2-3 answers, and true or false. To complete this page, children have to write the answer on provided lines or circle the correct answer. This sheet is illustrated with images of Chinese New Year items (a red fan, red Chinese lanterns, a dragon head, colorful fireworks displays, and a yellow, Chinese, Yuan, gold coin). Two words were misspelled on this page. To take care of this, I used a piece of white correction tape and put it over the last several letters of the words. I then used an ultra fine-tip, black, permanent marker to correct the spelling.
This multi-level set would make a wonderful addition to a household with children in the primary grades to be used during Chinese New Year! I am hoping to find it a good home.