我的生肖
wǒ de shēngxiào — My Zodiac Animal
📐 Standards alignment
ACTFL World-Readiness: Communication (interpretive, presentational) · Cultures (the zodiac and the story of the Great Race) · Connections (cycles and counting in twelves)
Can-Do targets (NCSSFL-ACTFL, Novice Low):
- I can name six more animals in Chinese, including the dragon.
- I can say which zodiac animal is mine.
- I can retell one part of the Great Race story.
Learning objectives
- Recognise and say six more animals, including 龙 lóng and 熊猫 xióngmāo
- Know that the Chinese zodiac runs in a cycle of twelve animals
- Find and name their own birth-year animal
Materials
Nothing needed. It helps to know the birth years of a few family members before you start. Optional: paper and crayons for the homework.
Prior knowledge
Unit 7 Lesson 1. Three animals from last lesson — 狗, 马 and 兔子 — turn out to be zodiac animals too, so today they come back with a new job.
Key vocabulary
龙 熊猫 鼠 牛 虎 羊
What year were you born?
Ask your child what year they were born, and work out the years for a few other people at the table. Then drop the hook: in China, every year has an animal, and the animal of the year you were born belongs to you for life. Most children want to know theirs immediately, which is the whole lesson taken care of.
Six more animals
Tap each card to flip it over. Look at the characters, say the word out loud, then check the back for the meaning — and press 🔊 to hear it.
生肖 — the twelve animals
The Chinese zodiac, 生肖 shēngxiào, is a cycle of twelve animals, one per year, repeating for ever: 鼠 shǔ, 牛 niú, 虎 hǔ, 兔 tù, 龙 lóng, 蛇 shé, 马 mǎ, 羊 yáng, 猴 hóu, 鸡 jī, 狗 gǒu, 猪 zhū. Count them out on fingers twice — twelve is a satisfying number for a five-year-old to hold. Then find your child’s animal: a child born in 2019 is 猪 zhū, in 2020 鼠 shǔ, in 2021 牛 niú, and in 2022 虎 hǔ. Because the cycle is twelve years long, a grown-up born twelve, twenty-four or thirty-six years before them shares their animal, which children find delightful.
Whose animal is whose?
Go round everyone your child can think of — family, friends, a pet, a favourite character — and work out each one’s animal from their birth year. Say each animal out loud in Chinese as you assign it. Making a little family list on paper turns this into something your child will come back to on their own.
Memory game — find the pairs
Every Chinese word has its English meaning hiding somewhere in the grid. Tap two cards to see if they match.
Find the matching pairs!
Listen and choose
Press each play button and pick what you heard.
1. Press play. Which animal did you hear?
2. Press play. Which animal did you hear?
3. Press play. Which animal did you hear?
Run the Great Race
Act out the Great Race across the living room. Each player picks an animal and moves the way it would — 蛇 slithers, 马 gallops, 龙 flies. One player can be the rat riding on the ox’s shoulders and jumping off at the finish line, which is the part every child wants. Shout the Chinese animal names as you go.
Show what you know
1. Which word means “dragon”?
2. How many animals are there in the Chinese zodiac?
3. In the story of the Great Race, which animal finished first?
Great work!
Today your child met 龙, 熊猫, 鼠, 牛, 虎 and 羊, learned that the Chinese zodiac is a twelve-year cycle, and found the animal that belongs to them. Of everything in Kindergarten, the zodiac animal is the piece children remember for years — because it is theirs. Unit 8 sits down at the table and gets hungry.
Take it home
My zodiac animal
Draw your own zodiac animal in the box, as grand and as colourful as you like. Copy its Chinese characters underneath. Then ask two grown-ups what year they were born, work out their animals, and draw a small version of each beside yours.
Name: Date:
Tell the Great Race
Retell the story of the Great Race to someone who has not heard it: the rat rode on the ox and jumped off at the finish, and the dragon stopped to make rain for a village and came fifth. Colour in a star for each person you tell.
Note for teachers & parents
Pacing: the zodiac step carries this lesson, so do not rush it — counting the twelve animals out and finding everyone’s animal can easily fill the whole twenty minutes. The race game can wait for another day.
Watch for: 鼠 shǔ and 虎 hǔ sound alike to English ears and are both third tone — 鼠 is the rat, 虎 is the tiger. And 龙 lóng is one syllable, not two: it rhymes with “long” but with the tongue further back, and it should never come out as “loan-guh”.