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.

My brother went through a phase where he was obsessed with maps. He loved to look at maps and he would draw maps of places real and imagined. He even drew maps that followed our route when we’d go to visit our grandparents in another state!

I assume there are still kids who go through map phases, and kids with an interest in history and how things got to be the way they are. Both kinds of kids will enjoy the book Borders: Understanding the Lines that Unite and Separate Us by Karim Ressouni-Demigneux, with illustrations by Karine Maincent.

The book describes how the original borders were natural, such as oceans, rivers, mountains and deserts, and while some of those borders are still in use today, many borders are human made, decided by treaties or carved out by colonizers. It covers the history of people congregating in one place and how city-states evolved into empires, how maps are drawn and how human conflicts can reshape borders.

There are stories about walls that reinforce borders, how borders work in the air and at sea, how people cross borders with passports or as refugees and how climate change is altering the borders of some countries.

You’ll also learn some fun border facts like the fact that if you stand in the middle of the bridge over the Zambezi River you can be in four countries at once because that’s where the borders of Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe meet. Or how there is only one border crossing between India and Pakistan that’s closed each night in an elaborate ceremony.

The book talks about time zones, border towns and places where countries and parts of countries are inside other countries and places where borders are less important such as the European Union.

While there are serious subjects in the book, it’s still a fun read that’s sure to interest those kids around ages 8-12 who like travel, maps and weird but true facts.

About the book: 72 pages, hardcover, published 2026 by Blue Dot Kids Press. Suggested retail price $21.95.

Have you read?

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