Qing Ming Festival: Lesson Plan

Suitable for Years 4-6

Predict:

Look at these photos, which are from an important Chinese festival.

What might the festival be about? What might happen at this festival?

Qingming Festival, which is known as Tomb Sweeping Festival ​is an important festival in Chinese culture that acknowledges ​Chinese ancestors who are no longer here.

Popular activities during this festival include:

• Sweeping and decorating ancestral graves
  
• Making food offerings
  
• Burning paper money
  
• Having picnics and kite flying
  
• Eat Qingtuan - green dumplings made from glutinous rice ​and mugwort of barley grass
  

Activity:

Watch the videos to learn more about the various offerings ​and associated activities.

Discuss other festivals based on the idea of the departed. A mainstream example of this is Halloween.

• Watch this video about Halloween: History of Halloween (0:55 - 3:01) and/or (4:17 - 6:55)
  

• Now watch videos about other festivals around the world that are similar:
  
• Day of the Dead for Kids - South American and Hispanic festival
• Muyang Gadeng Festival and look at some photos of the same festival - Ari Muyang in Malaysia
  

NOTE for educators:

Please watch these videos ​before you show them to decide ​if they are suitable for your ​students as different cultures ​and religions view death and ​these festivals differently.

Choose 1 festival you've learnt about that is similar to Qing Ming Festival. Complete a 5Ws task to identify ​the key information for both this festival and Qing Ming Jie e.g. Who celebrates it, Why is it celebrated, Where ​do people go, How is it celebrated, etc?

Then use this information to brainstorm similarities and differences between the festivals, thinking about ​different aspects of each festival.

Create a T table, Venn Diagram, infographic or poster to compare the two festivals. You can use Canva, ​Google Slides, Mindomo, or any platform you wish, including handwriting/drawing.

Share your work with others to educate them about Qing Ming Festival!

Popular activities for children on this day, other than ​visiting and sweeping the graves of their ancestors, ​are having picnics with their families, kite flying and ​admiring the Spring blossoms that come out this time ​of year.

Activity:

Make a kite! Use this video, or your own resources, to ​make a kite in pairs or individually. Then take your kites ​outside and fly them on a windy day.

Spring blossoms are out around the time of Qing Ming Festival ​and are beautiful to look at. Discuss which plants and flowers ​you see around your school and community during Springtime.

Activity:

Create your own blossom painting window hanging. Click here ​for instructions.

Qing Ming literally means ‘clear’ and ‘bright’ which describes ​the weather in China at this time.

Spring blossoms are out around the time of Qing Ming ​Festival and are beautiful to look at. Celebrating blossoms ​in Springtime is a favourite activity in Japan in Springtime ​too.

Activity:

Look at the different images of Spring blossoms or Cherry ​blossoms in Google Arts and Culture here.

Activity:

Create your own blossom painting using cotton buds.

Share!

• Share your students’ fantastic work with your school community to show them the great intercultural ​learning taking place in your classroom!

• Create a Learning Wall for all the learning your class makes about this festival and their new cultural ​knowledge!

• Prepare a short piece to share at assembly or even to other classrooms to educate others about this ​festival.
  

Post!

• Tag @MegGlobalEd on school posts so we can celebrate your students’ wonderful work. Find Meg on ​Facebook, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, and Instagram.