Lunar New Year Zodiac Animals: Coloring Pages

The zodiac is based on a 12-year cycle and each year is linked to an animal. It’s believed that the animal that rules your year of birth influences your personality. It’s sort of like astrology. Do you know what your animal is? It depends not only on the year in which you were born, but which date as well (in fact, even the hour of your birth is of utmost importance!). Discover your animal and see if the description is accurate.

Materials

• Printer
• Color markers, crayons, or paint
• Optional: Stickers, googly eyes, glitter, etc.

Procedure

1. Print out the coloring page of your zodiac animal or your favorite animal from the downloadable PDF (see sidebar above). The birth dates corresponding to the animal can be found there.
2. Use art materials in your house to decorate the animal.
3. Click through the image gallery and see if the description of your zodiac animal is accurate.

Note

We used the lunar calendar to determine your zodiac animal, as it’s popularly done today. Historically, however, they were based on the Chinese solar calendar (at the start of Li Chun or spring). Intrigued? Read more on this site.

We also followed the Chinese zodiac animals. In other countries that celebrate the Lunar New Year, they have different animals in their cycle. Vietnam, for instance, has a cat, instead of the rabbit, as a zodiac animal.