Learn Chinese Zodiac Animal Characters with Jigsaw Puzzle

Surely you know that the Chinese New Year is coming. And this new year is going to be the year of Ox! Ox is the 2nd zodiac animal in Chinese zodiac animals. As we are preparing for the celebration, I thought it would be a good idea to add a bit more fun into Chinese learning: learn Chinese zodiac animal characters with jigsaw puzzles. 

What Is a Jigsaw Puzzle

A jigsaw puzzle is a little puzzle that requires the assembly of pieces; each individual piece has a portion of a picture; when assembled, the jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture. 

Chinese character jigsaw puzzle is great for learning the characters since the puzzle requires students to not only have a general idea of how the character looks like, but also the structure of the character itself. 

How A Chinese Character Jigsaw Puzzle Work

The jigsaw puzzle I created is for young learners. The Chinese characters are on top of an image of the animals, which serves as cues for assembling the pieces together. 

For each character jigsaw puzzle, there are two pages: the first one has all the pieces and the 2nd page has the box for assembling the cutoff pieces in addition to some character writing practice. The character writing practice gives another cue how the character looks like as well as how it is pronounced. 

Instructions

1. Print out the puzzles
2. Cut off the pieces on the 1st page
3. Play and assemble the pieces into a Chinese zodiac animal character.
4. Paste them in the box on the 2nd page
5. Practice the Chinese writing

Another way of using and reusing the puzzle pieces is to laminate the pieces. Assemble the pieces on the table or on the page with the assembling box. Once assembled, children can trace over the character using their fingers. 

Related Resources:

• Chinese Zodiac Animal Character Jigsaw Puzzle Activity Book
• Year of the Ox Chinese Learning Pack for Kids -learn about Chinese New Year
• CHINESE YEAR OF THE OX ACTIVITY WORKBOOK
• CHINESE YEAR OF THE PIG ACTIVITY WORKBOOK
• YEAR OF THE RAT CHINESE LEARNING ACTIVITY WORKBOOK
• Lucky Phrases for Chinese New Year
• Celebrating New Year – a Chinese Chant to Learn about Chinese New Year
• Chinese New Year Celebration Activities and More