Chinese Year Wheel by Noah and Victor

The Chinese Year Wheel is a fun and creative project done by Leading Edge 6th graders. Every year there is a new zodiac for 12 animals. The wheel must first, have the years of the animal. Second, the Chinese character of the animal. Third, the characteristics of the person born in the animal's year. Finally, it has to be neat and colorful. If you want to go above and beyond to get extra credit, then you can add nice things to your wheel like-colored paper. A lot of the wheels are turning out to look really cool, as you can see in the examples shown.

The order of the wheel was determined long ago in a race hosted by the Jade Emperor (one of the most important gods in the Chinese religion). The Jade Emperor stated that the first, twelve animals to cross the river would get a year in the zodiac named after them. At the start of the race, a cat and rat convinced a kindhearted ox to give them a ride to the end of the river. When they were near the end, the rat pushed the cat into the river, jumped off the ox, and achieved first place. The ox was able to acquire second place. In third place was the tiger who had a tough time swimming through the river currents. The rabbit showed up in fourth place by hopping from stone to stone, but at the last stone fell off. It was then a large shadow cast over him and a powerful gust of wind blew him to the finish line. The dragon came in fifth place because it was he who helped the rabbit. He also helped make rain for villagers suffering a drought. Soon after came the horse who was very close to securing the sixth spot, until a snake who had been hiding in the horse’s mane jumps out and stole sixth place. The horse finished seventh place. Later arrived the goat, monkey, and rooster. At the start of the race, the rooster found a raft, but he couldn’t paddle all on his own. The rooster decided to invite a goat and monkey to help. The rooster and monkey let the goat finish eighth. The monkey came in ninth with the rooster following her in tenth place. Soon later in eleventh place, appeared the dog who spent much of his time playing in the water. Finally, after a long time, entered the pig in twelfth place who took a long nap and floated on his belly to get at the end. With that the years of the Chinese Zodiac were complete. Eventually, the cat reached the end but not in time to get a Chinese Zodiac named after him, this is why to this day, cats always hate rats.