Animals in Chinese Worksheet

Why animals are a great first topic

Children already love animals, and several animal characters started out as drawings of the animal itself. 马 (horse), 鸟 (bird), 鱼 (fish), 羊 (sheep) and 牛 (ox) were once small pictures, and with a little imagination kids can still see the legs, the tail or the horns. That makes them easier to remember than most characters.

The animals in each set

Pets: 猫 māo (cat), 狗 gǒu (dog), 鱼 yú (fish), 鸟 niǎo (bird), 兔 tù (rabbit).
Farm: 牛 niú (cow, ox), 马 mǎ (horse), 羊 yáng (sheep, goat), 猪 zhū (pig), 鸡 jī (chicken), 鸭 yā (duck).
Wild: 虎 hǔ (tiger), 狮 shī (lion), 熊 xióng (bear), 猴 hóu (monkey), 象 xiàng (elephant), 蛇 shé (snake).
Zodiac: the twelve animals of the Chinese calendar, in order.

In spoken Chinese many of these are said as two syllables: 小猫 (kitty), 小狗 (puppy), 老虎 (tiger), 狮子 (lion), 猴子 (monkey), 大象 (elephant). Once your child can write the single character, show them the longer word too.

Spot the family resemblance

Animal characters are a nice way to introduce radicals, the shared parts that hint at meaning:

犭 (the “dog” side) appears in 狗, 猫, 猪, 狮 and 猴, all furry mammals.
鸟 (bird) is part of 鸡 and 鸭.
虫 (insect, creature) is on the left of 蛇. Ancient Chinese grouped snakes with crawling creatures.

After your child writes the Pets set, ask them which characters share a part. Finding the 犭 on their own is a real “aha” moment. The radicals worksheet has more of these building blocks.

Games to play with the finished sheet

Animal sounds. Point to a character and your child makes the animal’s sound. Then swap roles.
Zoo map. Draw a simple zoo on a large sheet and have your child label each enclosure with the character.
Sorting. Write each animal on a card and sort them into pets, farm and wild, or into “has 犭” and “doesn’t”.
Picture books. Find the characters in a Chinese picture book. Animal stories use them on almost every page.

Which settings to choose

For preschoolers, start with the Easy first set (马牛羊鸟鱼), large boxes and five tracing boxes. Children aged six to eight can do any set with three tracing boxes. Wild animals have the most strokes (熊 has fourteen) so save them for confident writers, and turn on stroke order so they can see where each stroke goes.

Questions parents ask

Why does 羊 mean both sheep and goat?

Chinese uses 羊 for both. To be specific, people say 绵羊 for sheep and 山羊 for goat.

Where are the zodiac animals explained?

The Chinese New Year worksheet covers the zodiac and the festival words that go with it.

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