On the final evening of the 15-day Chinese New Year festival is the Yuan Xiao festival, known in English as the Lantern Festival. Children are especially drawn to the lovely lanterns that compete with the full because it is traditional to attach to the lantern’s bottom a riddle on a paper strip.

While Chinese riddles can be quite complex, in this exercise we have provided a simpler English language version. This exercise includes:

• A brief explanation of the festival and sample riddles

• 30 sample riddles and answers for classroom use.

• 30 sample riddles printed in strips to be cut out for use on lanterns you make

• 30 sample answers on strips to go with the riddles

• 30 sample answers to go alternatively on a bulletin board

• Directions for making simple lanterns

This exercise also goes well with the Chinese horoscopes exercise from Creating Delight.