1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on the Microsoft Educator Network.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location, take a Skype lesson on today’s topic, or invite a guest speaker to expand on today’s subject. And if you are using Windows 8, the panoramas in the MSN Travel App are great teaching tools. We have thousands of other education apps available on Windows here.
Nell Bang-Jensen is a teacher and theater artist living in Philadelphia, PA. Her passion for arts education has led her to a variety of roles including developing curriculum for Philadelphia Young Playwrights and teaching at numerous theaters and schools around the city. She works with playwrights from ages four to ninety on developing new work and is especially interested in alternative literacies and theater for social change. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she currently works in the Artistic Department of the Wilma Theater and, in addition to teaching, is a freelance actor and dramaturg. In 2011, Nell was named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and spent her fellowship year traveling to seven countries studying how people get their names.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Reading—Informational Text
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.3 Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.5 Use text features and search tools (e.g., key words, sidebars, hyperlinks) to locate information relevant to a given topic efficiently.

2. What is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how is this determined?
© Olivier Parent/Alamy
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. What is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how is this determined?
What we call the Chinese lantern, Japanese lantern, winter cherry, or bladder cherry, botanists call Physalis alkekengi. It’s a plant native to Asia and parts of southern Europe. The white blossoms eventually fruit, but the red berry is concealed for some time by a reddish-orange papery covering that eventually dries and skeletonizes, as seen here.
The bright paper-like covering resembles Chinese and Japanese lanterns, especially the red lanterns that are part of traditional decorations for the Chinese Lantern Festival. Today in China and abroad, red paper lanterns will light up the night sky as the festival brings to an end 15 days of New Year celebrations, ringing in the year of the ram.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. What is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how is this determined?1
Web Search/Thinking
What is your sign according to Western astrology? What determines your sign and how is this different from Chinese astrology? 2
What does “zodiac” mean and how might this give you clues into how the Chinese zodiac works? 3
The Gregorian calendar (the calendar that most of us are used to using) is a solar calendar. Is the calendar that determines your Chinese Zodiac sign also a solar calendar? How is it different? 4
Why might most of the people in your class have the same sign according to the Chinese Zodiac? 5
What do you supposedly learn about a person based on their Chinese Zodiac sign?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. What is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how is this determined?5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. What is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how is this determined?1
Web Search/Thinking
What is your sign according to Western astrology? What determines your sign and how is this different from Chinese astrology? 2
What does “zodiac” mean and how might this give you clues into how the Chinese zodiac works? 3
The Gregorian calendar (the calendar that most of us are used to using) is a solar calendar. Is the calendar that determines your Chinese Zodiac sign also a solar calendar? How is it different? 4
Why might most of the people in your class have the same sign according to the Chinese Zodiac? 5
What do you supposedly learn about a person based on their Chinese Zodiac sign?

7. What is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how is this determined?1
Web Search/Thinking
What is your sign according to Western astrology? What determines your sign and how is this different from Chinese astrology?
(Possible Search Queries: “for kids, what is my astrological sign?”, “for kids, how is my Chinese Zodiac sign determined?”, “figuring out your zodiac sign”).
Answers will vary. For example, a student born on February 21st may find the following….
From
Pisces: The two fish.
Students should note that in order to find their western astrological sign (like Pisces), they need to enter their full birth date. Students should then try to find their Chinese zodiac sign as well. For example, from They should notice that their Chinese zodiac sign is determined by year, whereas their sign according to western astrology is determined by a specific date.

8. What is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how is this determined?2
Web Search/Thinking
What does “zodiac” mean and how might this give you clues into how the Chinese zodiac works?
(Possible Search Queries: “for kids, what is the Chinese zodiac?”, “for kids, what does zodiac mean?”).
From
The Shēngxiào literally "birth likeness", is also known in English as the Chinese zodiac. Zodiac derives from the similar concept in western astrology and means "circle of animals". It is a scheme and systematic plan of future action that relates each year to an animal and its reputed attributes according to a 12-year mathematical cycle and it remains popular in several East Asian countries including China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan.
The meaning of zodiac as a “circle of animals” tells us that the Chinese zodiac links birth dates on the calendar with animals, and that this cycle repeats throughout time.

9. What is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how is this determined?3
Web Search/Thinking
The Gregorian calendar (the calendar that most of us are used to using) is a solar calendar. Is the calendar that determines your Chinese Zodiac sign also a solar calendar? How is it different?
(Possible Search Queries: “is the western calendar solar?”, “is the Chinese zodiac calendar solar?”).
From
The Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar. A regular Gregorian year consists of 365 days and in a leap year, an intercalary or leap day is added as 29 February making the year 366 days. Normally a leap year occurs every 4 years, but the Gregorian calendar omits 3 leap days every 400 years, unlike the Julian calendar, which retains those leap days. A Gregorian year is divided into twelve months.
From
The Chinese calendar is based on the moon phase and the season of the solar year. It incorporates elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. In modern China, the solar or Gregorian calendar is used for most day-to-day activities, but the Chinese calendar is still used for marking traditional Chinese holidays. The twelve animal signs of Chinese Astrology are based on the Chinese calendar. Unlike the solar calendar, which is fixed at 365 days except for leap year, the lunar calendar is based on phases of the moon and is less than 365 days. When synchronizing the Chinese calendar with the solar calendar, one leap month in the lunar calendar occurs every few years. As a result, the Chinese New Year is never a fixed date on the solar calendar; rather, it usually falls between mid January and late February on the solar calendar. According to Chinese Astrology, if you were born in January or February, you must consult the Chinese calendar to see when the Chinese New Year falls to learn if your animal sign is the present year or the previous year in Chinese Astrology.

10. What is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how is this determined?4
Web Search/Thinking
Why might most of the people in your class have the same sign according to the Chinese Zodiac?
(Possible Search Queries: “for kids, what determines your Chinese zodiac sign?”, “for kids, how to figure out your Chinese zodiac”).
From
The Chinese mark each year with a corresponding animal. There are 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac is the year of the dragon.
Students should understand from this description (or a similar description) that the Chinese Zodiac marks each year with a corresponding animal. Because the signs are determined on a yearly basis, it makes sense that most of the students in one class in school would have the same Chinese zodiac; they were born in the same year. Students can take this a step further to ask classmates what year they were born and see how much variety they get in their answers.

11. What is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how is this determined?5
Web Search/Thinking
What do you supposedly learn about a person based on their Chinese Zodiac sign?
(Possible Search Queries: “for kids, what is your Chinese zodiac?”, “for kids, what does your Chinese zodiac say?”).
From
In Chinese astrology the animal signs assigned by year represent what others perceive you as being or how you present yourself.
In other words, according to the Chinese zodiac, people can learn things about your personality (or at least what they might expect your personality to be like), based on your birth date.

12. What is your Chinese Zodiac sign and how is this determined?
Students should find an online resource to look up the Chinese zodiac sign that corresponds to their birth date. Answers will vary. Students should understand some of the similarities and differences between western astrology and the Chinese zodiac and understand that both are based on slightly different calendars (the western system of astrology is based on a solar calendar, whereas the Chinese zodiac is determined by a calendar that’s both lunar and solar). The zodiac is a “circle of animals” and some believe that your birth year, and where you fall in this corresponding circle, is revealing of your personality. Students may have fun looking up their birth dates and what corresponding information they can find about who they supposedly are, based on this, but they should also know it’s just one belief system (as is western astrology) and isn’t necessarily a determination of who they are as a person!