What are the Chinese Zodiac animals? guide for children

Use this guide to the Chinese Zodiac animals with your children to learn about the Chinese New Year celebrations.

What are the Chinese Zodiac animals?

Let’s learn about the Chinese Zodiac animals and how they relate to the Chinese New Year celebration.

This article is part of our Chinese New Year activities for children.

In this article you can:

:: learn about the Chinese zodiac animals

:: learn why they are important to the Chinese New Year festival

:: get three-part Chinese zodiac animals cards printables and ideas on how to use them for Chinese New Year activities

:: find links to more Chinese New Year activities and crafts

Ready-made Chinese New Year lesson plans, all in one place

The best and easiest way to teach your children about Chinese New Year is with our ready-made Chinese New Year thematic unit. Join our Play Academy and download a ready-made Chinese new Year Unit.

This Unit includes lessons on Chinese New Year and how it is celebrated; the animals of the Chinese zodiac; Chinese dragons and how to make your own dragon puppet; how to make Chinese-style paper lanterns; math and literacy activities including playing lucky 8s, counting to ten in Chinese and play red envelope games; explore sensory painting and taking a mandarin sensory taste test.

In this Chinese New Year Unit you’ll also receive bonus printables including a Red Envelope mat for math activities and three-part colour-in Chinese Zodiac Animals matching cards.

If you are not yet a member of NurtureStore’s Play Academy, join us here to get this and over 50 more ready-made teaching units.

What are the Chinese Zodiac animals? guide for children

In the Chinese calendar, each year is associated with one of twelve special animals from the Chinese Zodiac.

These animals all have special personalities and attributes and people are thought to share qualities with the animal of the year in which they were born.

The animals of the Chinese zodiac are the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. 

China Today has a guide to the characters of each animal and you can find links below to individual animal crafts.  

You can read the Chinese zodiac story on China Highlights to learn how the twelve animals were selected and how the personality of each animal determined the order in which they appear in the zodiac.

On February 10th, 2024 a Year of the Dragon begins. This is the fifth year in the 12-year zodiac cycle. People born in the year of the dragon are said to be “charismatic, intelligent, confident, powerful and they are naturally lucky and gifted.“

You can find out the animal for the year you were born here.

Printable Chinese zodiac animals cards

Play Academy members can get a ready-made Chinese New Year Unit to teach your children about the festival. This includes a bonus set of Chinese Zodiac Animal Card. Join the Play Academy here and you can download these printables along with over 50 more ready-made teaching units.

How to use the Chinese Zodiac Animals printable cards

Download the Chinese Zodiac Animal Cards from the ready-made Chinese New Year Unit in the Play Academy.

Print the cards and cut out them out. You might like to print on the thick card or laminate them, for extra durability.

You can use the cards to learn all twelve animals of the zodiac and which characteristics as associated with them.

Print two sets of the cards: one to cut up and play with, one to act as a guide so you know which characteristic matches which animal.

Colour in each animal and talk about the vocabulary words.

Play matching games: matching each animal with its name and characteristic. Or use two sets of the animal picture cards, placed face down, to play a matching pairs Memory game.

You could hide the cards in a red and gold themed sensory tub. (The traditional colours associated with Chinese New Year.)

Use the cards to develop language skills of speaking and listening by giving clues. See if your children can find the right cards to match your clues: I spy the card that has an animal with no legs , I spy the card which has an animal that begins with the letter R… See if your child can give you some clues to follow too. 

More Chinese New Year activities for children

See our full index of Chinese New Year activities for more ideas including how to make Chinese Lanterns, math and literacy activities using red envelopes, and sensory play activities for Chinese New Year.