Lunar New Year 2027 (Feb 6): Classroom Activities for Elementary Students

Lunar New Year 2027 begins on Saturday, February 6, opening the Year of the Goat, and the best classroom activities teach real content (the lunar calendar, the zodiac story, traditions across several cultures) while inviting families to share instead of relying on stereotypes. Because the first day falls on a weekend, most elementary classes celebrate on Friday, February 5, or during the following week. The festival season runs for about two weeks and ends with the Lantern Festival on February 20, so you have room to spread the learning out. This guide gives you activities by subject and grade band, a respectful approach, and a simple week plan. For every date of the school year, see our school calendar 2026-27.

What students should understand

Lunar New Year marks the start of a new year on a calendar based on the cycles of the moon. It’s celebrated by many communities: Chinese families call it the Spring Festival, Vietnamese families celebrate Tết, and Korean families celebrate Seollal. Traditions differ, but common themes include cleaning the house to make room for good luck, family reunion meals, gifts of money in red envelopes, honoring older relatives and ancestors, and wishing each other health and prosperity.

That variety is the most important message for students: there isn’t one “correct” way to celebrate. Using the name “Lunar New Year” and naming specific traditions helps every student see their own family represented, and helps the rest of the class learn something accurate.

A respectful approach

Before you plan, think about who is in your room. If you have students who celebrate, contact their families privately and ask whether they’d like to share something: a story, a photo, a food, a greeting. Make it a genuine invitation, and never put a child on the spot to explain their culture.

A few guidelines help:

• Use picture books and texts by authors from the cultures you’re teaching about.
• Skip costumes, “dress like” days and exaggerated accents or fonts.
• Teach the meaning behind a tradition before any craft connected to it.
• Present Lunar New Year alongside other New Year traditions, so it isn’t framed as “exotic.”
• Keep food activities optional and check allergies and school policies.

Math activities

Moon calendar (2–5). Explain that a lunar month follows the moon from one new moon to the next, about 29.5 days. Students compare that with the months on a standard calendar. How many lunar months fit in a year of 365 days? (About 12.4.) Why does Lunar New Year move between late January and mid-February? This is a rich problem for older students to reason through with a calendar.

Zodiac order and ordinal numbers (K–1). Line up the 12 zodiac animals in the order of the story (rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig). Students practice ordinal words: “The tiger came third.” “Which animal came right after the horse?”

Zodiac years (3–5). The animals repeat every 12 years. Students figure out which animal matches the year they were born, a sibling’s year, or the year 2039. Encourage them to count back by 12s or use repeated addition.

Red envelope money (1–3). Red envelopes carry wishes for good fortune. Use play money to practice counting coins and bills: “Fill an envelope with exactly 88 cents using the fewest coins.” (The number eight is considered lucky in Chinese tradition, which makes a nice discussion point.)

Science: moon phases (1–3)

A lunar calendar is a great excuse to study the moon itself. For two weeks before and after the new year, students keep a moon journal: each evening, with a family member, they look for the moon and draw its shape in a box on a calendar page. Back in class, compare drawings and sort them into new moon, crescent, quarter, gibbous and full moon. Ask: “How many days until the moon looks the same again?” Students will find it takes about four weeks, which connects straight back to the length of a lunar month. Lunar New Year always begins on a new moon, so the night of February 6 will have no visible moon at all, and the Lantern Festival two weeks later falls on a full moon. If skies are cloudy, use a moon phase calendar online and have students record the shapes from it instead.

Reading and writing activities

The great race (K–2). Read a version of the zodiac legend, in which the animals race across a river and their finishing order decides the order of the years. Retell it in sequence with picture cards using first, next, then, last. Students can debate which animal was the smartest and why.

Compare traditions (3–5). Students read short texts about Spring Festival, Tết and Seollal and complete a three-column chart: food, family customs and symbols. They then write a paragraph explaining one similarity and one difference.

Wishes for the new year (all grades). Many families share wishes for health and happiness. Students write one wish for themselves, one for their family and one for the class. Younger students can draw and label.

Family traditions (2–5). “How does your family celebrate a new year?” Every student has an answer, whether it’s January 1, Lunar New Year, Rosh Hashanah, Nowruz or another date. Students write a short informative piece, and the class creates a “New Years around the world” display.

Arts and social studies

Paper lanterns (K–3). Lanterns light up the end of the festival season. Students fold and cut a simple paper lantern and attach a wish written on a strip.

Map work (3–5). Students locate China, Vietnam, Korea and other countries where Lunar New Year is widely celebrated, as well as U.S. cities with large celebrations. Then they discuss why traditions travel with families when they move.

Music and movement. Watch a short video of a lion dance and talk about what the movements and drums are meant to do, which is to bring luck and chase away bad fortune.

A week plan you can copy

If you can only do one day, combine the zodiac story, the zodiac years math and the wishes writing on Friday, February 5.

Supporting every student

Lunar New Year is a natural time to include multilingual families. Learn and practice a greeting in the languages represented in your class, for example “Xīnnián kuàilè” (Mandarin), “Chúc mừng năm mới” (Vietnamese) or “Saehae bok mani badeuseyo” (Korean), and ask families to help with pronunciation. For English learners, sentence frames such as “One tradition is ___. It means ___.” help them join the discussion. Our ELL strategies guide has more supports by proficiency level.

Remember that February is also Black History Month, and Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day fall in the same weeks. Plan the month as a whole, so no observance feels squeezed in. See our Black History Month activities and Groundhog Day activities for ideas that fit the same weeks.

Prep in less time

The time-consuming part is usually preparing leveled texts that compare traditions or a coin-counting page with the right difficulty. An AI tool can draft a short informational passage at two or three reading levels, which you then check for accuracy against trusted sources and adjust before printing.

Lunar New Year is a celebration of family, renewal and hope, and it gives your students a chance to see their classmates’ traditions with curiosity and respect. For more dates and ideas across the year, visit our school calendar 2026-27.