China Pack

The Wild Literacy China Pack has 17 unique sessions aimed at children aged 7 – 14, adaptable for a range of abilities. Wild Literacy topic packs provide a variety of fun, creative sessions designed for teachers and parents to support children in literacy development.

Each Wild Literacy pack is a careful curation of sessions that build on and complement each other. Together, the pack covers multiple skills through a variety of activities and different approaches. This means they are not repetitive or boring and they work well for different learners. Topics are explored in lots of interesting ways and sessions provide a host of ideas and various ways to take the learning in any direction a child may be interested in exploring.

The China Pack contains:

1. Lucky Numbers & Colours

This session looks at lucky and unlucky numbers and colours in Chinese culture. These are then used to explore homonyms, ideas for their own associations, and the opportunity to use what they have thought about to write (or draw) a story or scene set in an imaginary place where their significant numbers and colours affect the culture.

2. Chinese Inventions

In this session children will learn about things that were invented in Ancient China. They can use this information in a number of ways to develop different literacy skills. Choose one of the activities, or several depending on children’s interest.

3. Beliefs About Luck

In this session children will research and discuss different beliefs about luck. Some they may have come across before, others may be new to them. They will also have a chance to write some poetry through a simple rhyme. For the rhyme, you can use something children are interested in and encounter in their everyday lives to make the activity more engaging.

4. Silk Smugglers

This fun and active session involves finding out about silk smuggling in Ancient China and playing a game to experience tension in order to help children to write a piece of historical fiction about it. This can be a scene or a full story.

Lunar New Year section

Lunar New Year is celebrated in various countries across East and South-East Asia. This section explores some of the mythology and the food that plays a big part in New Year celebrations in China.

5. Nian Activities

This session has a number of different options for activities based on the story of Nian. These are practical activities that help create some descriptive writing and to explore and retell the story.

6. New Year Meal

This session combines research into the meanings behind food traditionally eaten at New Year with cooking and ideas for writing tasks to go alongside it.

7. New Year Invitations

In this activity you can learn about the differences between writing formal letter and an informal letter. The guide is short and straightforward to allow all children to complete an invitation. Doing both styles enables clear comparison in language and tone which will help children understand the differences and develop analysis skills.

Panda section

The panda is an iconic animal from China that has been a symbol of endangered species for decades. This section allows children to explore an important habitat in China, as well as the risks of species under threat of extinction.

8. Panda Fact-Finding

Researching and recording findings are an important literacy skill for children to develop. This session helps children research pandas and supports them to record their findings. What they discover here will form the basis for the creative activities in this panda section.

9. Panda Art

This session will support children to take what they have read and learnt through their research and think about how to communicate it through a piece of art. This will build foundations for skills in description, communication and comprehension.

10. Panda Poems

This session is a follow-up to the fact-finding activity where children can use their knowledge of pandas to write a poem. Poetry is a fantastic tool to express emotions and put a point across powerfully. Children are encouraged to take risks with their writing and to use it as a way to explore their own feelings about pandas – to express how much they like them or to provide a way to speak about the problems they face.

11. Panda Story

Children already have some great information to inform aspects of a panda story, having researched panda’s habitats, features, behaviour, and situation. In this session we look at how they can use this to plan the main aspects of a story: setting, characters, and plot. Children can focus on one of these, such as a panda character, or they can think of ideas for all of them. Use this session to help children make notes of their ideas. If they want to children can develop their ideas into a complete story.

Elixir of Life section

The quest for the Elixir of Life goes right back to the first Chinese emperors. This section includes fun activities that lead to story-writing, and finally to reflective thinking about the never-ending quest to live forever.

12. Elixir of Life Introduction

A short introduction to the section.

13. Make A Potion

This is a starter activity to use as a springboard for a Potion-Making Scene (see session 14) or a Potion Story (see 15). In this session children create their own potion. Having an experience of something aids writing about it – making a potion will help children write about an imaginary one. This is particularly beneficial for reluctant or unconfident writers. The hands-on nature of this session makes it fun and engaging. It will also encourage children to think about associations and meanings in different items which will help them develop their skills in figurative language.

14. Potion-Making Scene

This is a follow-up activity from the make your own potion activity. Children use the recipe and instructions for the potion they created and the experience of making it to write a potion-making scene. Writing based on an interesting activity the children have done themselves will engage them in the writing as well as provide inspiration and ideas.

15. Potion Story

This is a follow-up activity from the make your own potion activity. The fascinating history of Emperor Qin’s search for an elixir, along with their experience of making a potion, provide a great springboard to help children write a potion story. There’s plenty of flexibility in how to approach the story writing task. Children can create a synopsis, write a story of any length, write a diary entry story, a comic or animation.

16. The Fountain of Youth

The legendary fountain of youth is a subject that lends itself to fun and interesting conversations and creative writing. In this session children can imagine the fountain of youth and discuss and write about it in different ways. For children who struggle to write much, you can have plenty of interesting discussions and creative ideas about the subject without having to do any/much writing.

17. Elixir Quest Story

This session gives children a chance to use what they have found out about the elixir of life and the fountain of youth to write an interesting adventure story. Taking inspiration from legends is a great way to get children interested in creating a story and provides them with some good ideas to hook their story on. There’s plenty of flexibility in this session for the type and length of story. The questions and ideas will help children to think about the key things they need to include in a story.

18. Elixir Quest Reflective Thinking

This session involves discussing and reflecting on interesting and important questions related to people’s quest to stay young and to live forever. Critical and reflective thinking skills are essential for children to develop. They enable them to appreciate points of view that are different to theirs and to discuss topics more deeply.

Learning and practicing to research and analyse different perspectives and information, to examine their own and others’ opinions, and to reflect on what it means as part of a bigger picture and for their own lives are hugely important skills and practices for both their education and their life.