Use this Chinese New Year red envelope printable math mat for Chinese New Year counting, addition, and subtraction activities.
Chinese New Year red envelope printable math mats
Red envelopes are a special symbol of Chinese New Year. At the lunar new year celebration, red envelopes are filled with money or chocolate gold coins and given to children as a gift and blessing of prosperity and good fortune for the new year. You can see our complete Chinese New Year lesson plan here.
How to use this play dough play mat
Use this red envelope printable play dough mat to give your math practise a Chinese New Year-theme.
Print the mats (see below for details) , as many as you would like, and write a number or an addition / subtraction question in the gold rectangle on each of the envelope.
You can set the questions to match whichever level of math your children are working at: simple counting, addition, subtraction… just be sure to have each question equal an even number (as is the Chinese practice of giving coins) to give good luck!
You might like to laminate the play mat so you can use it again and again with a wipeable pen. Then invite your children to use play dough or gold coin tokens to fill the envelope with the correct number.
The mats are great to get children:
:: exploring sensory learning
:: developing fine motor skills as they work with the play dough
:: practicing counting, addition and subtraction as they work out the answers

Download your ready-made Chinese New Year Unit
Download your copy of the Play Academy’s ready-made Chinese New Year Unit and you’ll have everything you nee to teach an engaging programme of Chinese New Year activities.
In this Chinese New Year Unit your children can:
:: learn about Chinese New Year: what it is and how it is celebrated
:: learn about the animals of the Chinese zodiac
:: learn about Chinese dragons and make your own dragon puppet
:: make Chinese-style paper lanterns
:: play lucky 8s, count to ten in Chinese and play red envelope math games
:: explore sensory painting
:: try a mandarin sensory taste test
Bonus Chinese New Year thematic unit printables
The Play Academy’s thematic units come with practical printables that make the lessons more engaging for your children and easier for you to teach.
No need to go searching for printables to accompany your lessons, they’re all included when you download your chosen unit.
In this Chinese New Year Unit you’ll receive these bonus printables:
:: a Red Envelope mat for math activities
:: three-part colour-in Chinese Zodiac Animals matching cards
How to download this Chinese New Year thematic unit
You can download this unit along with over 50 more from NurtureStore’s Play Academy.
If you are already of the Play Academy, you can download this unit straight away from our Library here.
If you are not yet a member, find out more and choose your first unit here. Your teaching is about to get a whole lot easier!
How to download this printable
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