Chinese New Year Classroom Goodie Bag Ideas plus Printable Chopstick Race Game

Thank you to Oriental Trading Company for providing Chinese New Year goodie bag items for this project.  All opinions expressed are our own.

Chinese New Year comes early this year!  Since our twins' birthdays fall in late January, I thought it would be fun to make Chinese New Year-themed goodie bags to send in for their classrooms.  I had a few ideas, but thought that I might have trouble finding enough items to fill our goodie bags.  I had no idea that Oriental Trading Company's Chinese New Year party supplies & decorations section would have so many classroom-friendly goodie bag options.

One of the ideas I had was to create a fun game the students could play during indoor recess.  Looking through the items on Oriental Trading sparked an idea to make a game using chopsticks.  It's super-easy to make.  Here's what you'll need . . .

Chopstick Race Game

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

Mini Lucky Money Goody Bags

Decorated Wood Chopsticks

Mini Insect Erasers

Chopstick Race Printable (Below)

The object of the game is to pick up the various insects up with the chopsticks and move them one at a time to the jar.  These cute little insect erasers from Oriental Trading Company were the perfect size to use for this game.  The students can race against each other or try to beat their own best time.  It's a fun way to master the art of using chopsticks.

TO PRINT: Make sure your printer is on and ready to go.  Click on the image below to enlarge.  Then right-click on the image and select print.  Use your browser's back arrow to return to this page.

Clipart from 1001FreeDownloads.com

I found lots of fun things to include in these Chinese New Year goodie bags, but it occurred to me that some of them may seem random to the children.  This led to my making a basic label to attach to the outside of each bag.  If you're making a goodie bag like ours, then you can print these labels below.  Now the children will understand which items were included in the bag because they're considered symbols of good luck.

What's in our Chinese New Year goodie bags?

• (1) Chopstick Race Game
• (1) Laminated Jumbo Chinese Zodiac Bookmark
• (2) Chinese Zodiac Pencils
• (1) Fortune Cookie Eraser
• (3) Colorful Goldfish
• (3) Chinese New Year Goldtone Coins
• (1) Chinese New Year Sticker

To complete the presentation, I pasted a printable label to the outside of each bag.  I opted for brown paper lunch bags because they were the perfect size to hold the larger items, and they fit our label perfectly.  After filling each bag, I just folded the top of the bag down twice, holding it in place with a Chinese New Year sticker.  The stickers came in a roll of 100, so I had enough to include one inside and one on the outside of each goodie bag.

Like this idea?  Pin It for later . . . 

What other ideas do you have for celebrating Chinese New Year in the classroom?  Share them with us in a comment here.


Check out our other ideas for classroom-friendly goodie bags . . .

Free Printables: DC Comics Super-Villains Poster plus Fun Activity

 When my children play pretend, none of them want to be the bad guy.  They all want to be on the side of good because the good guys always win, right?  Even though my children always root for the super heroes, they still think the super-villains are pretty cool.  I wonder how they would do at this fun activity, which asks you to name all the DC Comic villains pictured in the poster.  Personally, I can recognize several from the Batman movies plus Lex Luthor, but that's about it.

How do you think your children would do?  Or even you for that matter?  Print out the poster and the answer key below to find out!

TO PRINT:  Make sure your computer's printer is turned on and ready to print.  Click on the desired image to enlarge.  Then right-click on image and select print.  Use your browser's back arrow to return to this page.

For more fun with DC Comics, visit DCNation.com.


The activity pages above were provided by Bender/Helper Impact on behalf of DC Comics.  No compensation was received for sharing this activity with my readers.

Free Printables: Halloween Word Searches (3 Difficulty Levels)

Since I was a child, I loved solving word search puzzles.  When I was about 12 or 13, my friends and I use to make them for each other.  (Yes, I may have been somewhat of a nerd.)

Well, I still enjoy making them, so I have decided to start offering these free printables to my readers.  Like these Halloween-themed word searches, all the ones I make will have 3 levels of difficulty . . . one for grade school-aged children, one for Pre-K through 1st grade, and one for preschoolers where the first letter of each word has been highlighted.  All puzzles have an answer key that you can either print or just save to your computer for reference.

TO PRINT:  Make sure your computer's printer is on and ready to go.  Click on the desired image to enlarge.  Then right-click on the image and select print.

Grade School Level

Preschool to 1st Grade Level

I have a whole list of themes for future puzzles I intend to create.  If you are looking for a specific theme, feel free to request one by leaving a comment or using my contact form.  If it is one I think my readers would enjoy, I would be happy to create word searches in that theme.

Click here for more Word Searches

Free Printables: Disney's Dumbo 70th Anniversary

Today marks the day of the much-anticipated release of the 70th Anniversary Edition of Disney's Dumbo!  I remember seeing this movie during a re-release in the theater as a young child and it is one of my earliest and fondest Disney memories.

If you are planning on introducing your child to the beloved Dumbo, it is now available to purchase in a Blu-ray/DVD Combo.  You can also treat your child to some free Dumbo printable coloring pages and activities to further the fun!  Simply click on the banner below to save the files to your computer and then print out one or all the activity sheets using your computer's printer.




Look for my family's review of Dumbo coming later this week!