Learning Activities for the Year of the Horse

When Lunar New Year comes around (that’s February 17, 2026), we’ll be ushering in the Year of the Horse, so let’s look at some horse (and lunar new year more generally) activities to try in the classroom or at home.

I have a post on general activities for Lunar New Year including DIY drums and dragons.

Living Life and Learning has some Lunar New Year printables on the Chinese zodiac including an I-spy, crossword and wheel of the zodiac kids can color, cut and glue the animals to. There’s also a little story with comprehension questions and a page for kids to draw their own zodiac sign. They also have another set of worksheets that includes the zodiac years, animals, a different I-spy, writing practice and an activity to find others in the classroom or household with different animal signs.

Hub Pages has printable red envelopes and bookmarks for the year of the horse, as well as printable coloring pages with a horse theme.

Activity Village has year of the horse printables for members that include mazes and a worksheet for coming up with words in the letters of year of the horse.

Teachers Pay Teachers has a lot of good resources for Lunar New Year in general and the year of the horse more specifically. To point out a couple, GATER Educator Kris Prince has a set of activities that includes reading comprehension about Lunar New Year, the year of the horse and the history of paper, and activities including a horse collage and calligraphy.

And Hope Creek Art Studios has a great set for art teachers of all grade levels on how to draw a horse that includes different techniques for different ages and skill levels such as working on symmetry or doing a one-line drawing.

Grab a printable horse crown/headband from Let’s Go to Learn. They also have year of the horse and more general Lunar New Year coloring pages.

Or get a full unit study and activity pack from My Mega Bundles Shop. This one includes information on the Chinese zodiac, practice writing horse in cursive, history and trivia, color b number, puzzles, math games, printable decorations and red envelopes and more. This set is aimed at kids 4-10 and looks like lots of fun.

Next Plan Idea:

Celebrate the Year of the Dragon

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

Next Plan Idea:

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