CHINESE

NEW YEAR

CHALLENGE

中国新年

Make sure you order your badges before you start the challenge to

make sure they are still in stock!

To order, please go to our website:

Www.guidebadger.com

This is a website we have set up especially to deal with badge orders

and make them easier for you to buy and us to send them.

Badges are £1 each, postage will be quoted on an order by order basis

ORDER YOUR BADGES

BRANDING APPROVAL

HOW TO EARN YOUR BADGE

To earn your badge, your unit must work together to put on a celebration evening for Chinese New Year. Along the way, you’ll make decorations, play games, discover traditions and taste great food. To earn the badge you need to do one activity from each of the sections below. We estimate you will need to spend 2-3 weeks on this badge, including your celebration evening!

Discovery Celebration Cuisine

Decoration Entertainment

发 现 发 现 DISCOVERY

YEAR OF THE….

This section gives you a chance to understand some of the traditions associated with Chinese New Year

Every Chinese new year is associated with one of 12 animals. At the back of the challenge pack there is a chart to show which animal belongs to each year.

Get all the girls to find out which animal represented the year they were born. In groups, they should make up a short sketch/play involving their animals.

There is also a good game on this in the “entertainment section”.

NEW YEAR CLEAR

One of the biggest traditions of Chinese New Year is to have a massive clear out! The idea behind this is to clear out the old and welcome in the new for the next year.

Consider what you could do at your unit to make a fresh start for the Chinese New Year and make an effort to make a difference. Examples could include:

Sorting out felt tips that are working

Sort out the arts & crafts

Talk about as a group what went well this term and what didn’t. Keep what went well for next term, and “throw out” what didn’t go well.

Give each small group of girls a small cleaning job in the unit meeting place.

RED ENVELOPES

Red envelopes/packets are money wrapped in red paper given to kids from their parents, grandparents and others as New Year gifts. They are called hongbao in Mandarin and lai see in Cantonese. Sending red packets is a well-observed custom at Chinese New Year.

Chinese people love the colour red, and regard red as the symbol of energy, happiness and good luck .

Have a go at creating some red envelopes of your own. There is a template at the back of this challenge pack. Make sure you use bright red paper and either gold/yellow paper.

Instead of filling them with money, perhaps write a good luck or good fortune message for the person you are giving it to.

娱乐 ENTERTAINMENT

DRAGON’s TAIL

This section gives you lots of games that you can play on your Chinese New Year evening (and at any other

time!)

Children stand around in a circle. A ball is thrown quickly around and across the circle. When a child catches the ball, the children on either side must raise one arm - the arm nearest the child with the ball - and hold it in the air until the ball is passed on to another child.

If a child fails to catch the ball, or fails to raise the correct arm when their neighbour catches the ball, or is too slow to pass the ball along, they drop out. When there are only 5 children left in the circle, they are all declared winners, and the game starts again.

娱乐

CHINESE BALL

The children all form a line with their hands on the shoulders of the child in front. The first in line is the dragon's head, the last in line is the dragon's tail.

The dragon's head then tries to catch the tail by manoeuvring the line around so that he can tag the last player. All the players in the middle do their best to hinder the dragon's head. Don't let the line break!

When the head catches the tail, the tail player takes the front position and becomes the new dragon's head. All the other players move back one position.

CATCHING MICE

A large circle is drawn on the ground (or use tape) The radius of the circle should be at least as long as 4 large child-sized steps. Divide the circle through the centre into 12 segments and number 1-12. You can also number the segments randomly if you wish.

Divide the children into teams. Take one child from each team and stand them in the centre of the circle, blind fold them, and turn them around 3 times to disorientate them a little. Now let the child take 4 steps in any direction, take off the blindfold, and the number of the segment they have landed in is their score.

Continue until all children have had a go, and add up the numbers. The winning team has the highest score.

If you choose to use random numbers, make sure there are large and small numbers cause some excitement amongst the teams!

MOON CAKE

One child is chosen to be the Cat (the chaser) and one child is chosen to become the Mouse. All the other children form a circle, holding hands, with the Mouse inside and the Cat outside.

The children in the circle move around while calling out the following rhyme:

"What time is it?" ……. “Just struck nine." …...

"Is the cat at home?" ….. "He's about to dine."

When the rhyme stops, the children stop moving and the Cat starts to chase the Mouse, weaving in and out of the ring of children to do so. However, the Cat MUST follow the mouse's path. When he catches the Mouse he can enjoy pretending to "eat" him, and then two more children take a turn.

PICK UP SEVEN

You will need:

7 small inch-square bags filled with beans or rice. These are a fun project for kids to make themselves, and they will enjoy playing the game even more when they have their own "pieces" to play with. Instructions to make the little bags are below.

How to play:

Children sit or stand around a table, of sit on the ground. Take turns to play as follows:

Holds all seven pieces in one hand. Drop them onto the surface, trying to spread them out so that the pieces aren't touching - but don't spread them too far or the game will be difficult!

Pick one of the pieces up and toss it in the air, grabbing another piece from the surface with the same hand before catching the original piece before it falls back to the surface. Still holding two pieces, throw one up in the air, grab another from the table, and catch the air-bound piece again. Continue until you hold all seven in your hand.

Obviously the game gets harder the more pieces you hold in your hand. If at any time one of the pieces falls out of your hand, the air-bound piece falls back onto the surface, or any of the pieces not being grabbed are touched or moved, play passes to the next player.

When you get good at this level, try picking up 2 pieces at once, then 3 pieces, and so on - until you are throwing one piece up into the air and scooping all remaining 6 pieces into your hand before catching that first piece again.

装 饰 DECORATION

BLOSSOM LANTERNS

No Chinese New Year would be complete without lots and lots of decorations. Pick some to do for your

celebration evening!

Print out the template(s) in the back of this challenge pack onto card, cut them out and colour them in with bright colours. Remember that the Chinese associate good luck and fortune with the colours red and yellow.

装 饰

DRAGON MASK

You will need some paper collapsible lamp shades for this craft, and some black and pink felt tips/paint.

Draw branches in black paint or pen onto the shade, then dot pink blossoms against the branches. Finger painting with pink paint works well here.

CHINESE LANTERN (harder)

1. Print out the template in the back of the challenge pack

2. Cut the solid lines, fold the dotted lines

3. Cut out the grey rectangles & stick tissue paper against it

4. Stick the inside of the “A” flaps over the “B” flaps

5. Hand with a ribbon against a window to let the light shine through

CHINESE LANTERN (easier)

1. Print out the template in the back of the challenge pack

2. Cut the solid lines, fold the dotted lines

3. Decorate your lanterns in bright colours

4. Tape either end of the lantern together to form a cylinder then gently squash the lantern from the top to create the shape.

5. Attach the handle and hang multiple along a string like bunting.

DOOR COUPLETS

You can create bunting with the lanterns you made on the previous page, however you can also create tradition bunting and decorate it with a Chinese new year theme. The template is in the back, one member of the unit could create a triangle each for the bunting, which leaders could then string together.

Ideas of things to put on your bunting:

The animal for this Chinese New Year, or the year you were born

Lots of red & gold

Messages of good luck / fortune

New year’s resolutions

CHINESE BUNTING

During New Year, and for other celebrations, the Chinese hang messages of good luck and fortune either side of their doorways.

Take some large sheets of paper and create your own door couplets to hang during your celebration evening.

Make sure they have lots of red and gold on them as those are the colours associated with good luck!

If you are feeling adventurous, use google translator to give you your message in Chinese symbols to make it look authentic!

烹 饪 CUISINE

GOOD FORTUNE FRUIT

Time to tantalise those taste buds! Sample some of the traditional Chinese cuisine.

This is a challenge for older sections, but can be adapted for younger sections to involve less cooking (e.g. packet mix).

Buy some longevity noodles (fine noodles) and give a packet to each group. Offer them a selection of other Chinese inspired ingredients and get them to compete to make the best dish. The winning dish could be served at your celebration evening.

A list of potential shopping ingredients is in the back of the pack

烹 饪

The Chinese consider fruits that are round and fruits that are yellow/orange to be incredibly good luck and expect them to bring good fortune. Bring some along to your celebration evening, or even better, make a dish out of many of them. Some ideas are:

Oranges (doubly lucky because it’s round and orange/yellow) Pineapple Mango Cantaloupe Melon Fruit kebabs

LIVE LONG NOODLES

BLIND DIP

A tasting platter is a great way to theatrically display food, perfect for celebrations!

Ask girls to bring in difference selections of Chinese food, then combine it onto one massive platter for the celebration evening!

Make sure there’s enough for everyone to have a bitesize portion of each type of food. Some suggestions of what you could bring are below:

Spring rolls

Prawn crackers

Duck pancakes

Prawn toast

Dumplings

TASTING PLATTER

Select 3-4 different dips, such as sweet chilli, plum sauce, ginger dipping sauce etc.

In groups, give the girls the dip selections, a blindfold and some prawn crackers (crisps if they are vegetarian).

Get the girls to guess which dip is which simply by taste—ask them to select their favourite too.

庆 典 庆 典 CELEBRATION

You only have one task in this section and that is to put on a celebration evening for Chinese New Year!

You can structure your evening however you wish, including doing as many of the activities in this pack during it if you wish!

Make sure you make your decorations in advance so you can decorate the venue ready to celebrate!

Consider whether you would like to make invitations for the event, some ideas of people you could invite:

Parents

Other units of the same section as you

Units from a difference section

Your district commissioner

Friends (as part of a bring a friend recruitment evening)

Chinese Lantern (Easier)

Chinese Lantern (Harder)

Chinese Ingredients Fine Noodles

Chicken / Vegetable Stock

Soy Sauce

Fish Sauce

Five Spice

Ginger

Garlic

Spring Onions

Water Chesnuts

Mushrooms

Carrots

Rice Wine

Bean Sprouts

Stir fry mixes are good for younger ages