Okay, so, I’ve been messing around with this idea of making a Chinese New Year calendar, you know, with all those zodiac animals. I got this idea cause I love learning about different cultures, and the whole Chinese zodiac thing seemed like a cool project.
I started by just googling around to get a basic idea. I found out that the Chinese zodiac goes through 12 animals, one for each year. It’s kind of like our zodiac signs, but it’s by year instead of month. I did a few quick searches, like “12 Zodiac Signs In Chinese” to get the general idea, and “Rat. Chinese zodiac sign birth years: 2020, 2008, 1996, 1984, 1972, 1960” to confirm some specifics, like the years associated with the Rat.

Then, I started listing out the years, from 1900 all the way to 2031. I made a big table, a chart on my computer, and started filling in the animals for each year. For each animal, I also wrote down the dates when that year’s Chinese New Year started. It was a bit of work to find that, especially for the older years. I used a search query like “Every Chinese zodiac year from 1900–2031” to find detailed information.
Details of my project
I also wanted to add another layer, so I looked up the “elements.” It turns out each year is also linked to an element: Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, or Earth. That was a whole other thing to add to my table!
- Gathering Info: First, I searched the web to learn about the Chinese zodiac.
- Making a Table: I created a table from 1900 to 2031.
- Filling in Animals: I put the right zodiac animal for each year. I realized, through another search that the dragon is the only sign that is a legendary animal.
- Finding Dates: I found the Chinese New Year dates for each year, which was tricky!
- Adding Elements: I added the element (Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, Earth) for each year, too.
It took a while, but now I’ve got this pretty cool calendar. It shows each year, the zodiac animal for that year, the dates for Chinese New Year, and the element. I even printed it out and stuck it on my wall. It’s a fun way to learn something new, and it looks pretty neat, too!