中国节日
Zhōngguó jiérì — Festivals
Four major festivals, properly this time. Grades 1 and 2 met Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn as celebrations; Grade 4 asks what they’re actually for, how they differ by region, and how to describe one in Chinese.
Unit objectives
- Name four festivals and when each falls
- Describe what people do and eat at each
- Explain why the dates move each year
- Present one festival in four Chinese sentences
Key vocabulary
节日 春节 清明节 端午节 粤子 龙舟 庆祝 传统 农历 放假
Four festivals through the year
春节 — Spring Festival
The biggest annual human migration on earth: hundreds of millions of people travelling home for one dinner.
清明节 — Tomb-Sweeping Day
Families tidy ancestors’ graves and bring food. A quiet festival about remembering, handled gently.
端午节 — Dragon Boat
The story of the poet Qu Yuan, the boat races, and the sticky rice dumplings thrown into the river.
Present a festival
Each student picks one and gives four sentences on it — what, when, who, and what you eat.
Same festival, different place
None of these is celebrated identically everywhere. Spring Festival in northern China means dumplings; in the south it often means a sticky new-year cake instead. Dragon boat racing is enormous in Hong Kong and Taiwan and smaller in many inland cities. Chinese communities in Singapore, Malaysia and across the Americas have their own versions again, shaped by what was available locally. The unit deliberately presents several rather than picking a single “correct” version — and students with family traditions of their own are invited to add them.
Unit 4 progress check
A light, no-pressure way to see what’s sticking:
- Can your child name three festivals?
- Can they say one thing people eat at each?
- Do they know why the dates move?
If a festival falls during the school year, drop everything and do this unit then instead. It lands far better in season.