Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is almost here and today we made a Chinese dragon to celebrate the year of the dragon. When I suggested we make a dragon today my son said ” Okay but it has to be huge!” My request was that it was a project that we could all do together. I also wanted a longer project since we are stuck at home in the snow and needed a long project to break up the at home day.
- Gather your materials. You will need some craft ( butcher block) paper, red, yellow and green construction paper , green paint, a rolling pin, cutting board, potato masher ( optional), scissors, glue, bubble wrap and a googly eye. Oh and painters tape to hold it down while you create.
- Start by taping the paper down and draw a dragon. I free handed the dragon and while perfect it’s not , I am trying to model effort not perfection for my kids and we are focusing on making something fun, not something perfect.
- Using the construction paper make triangles for spikes on the dragon’s back and head, long strips of red and orange for fire . If your child is cutting make some long strips with guided lines or blank strips thin enough for them to hold and cut easily. My daughter isn’t cutting yet but she still enjoyed ripping so I made sure some of our construction paper was in strips the right size for her to rip and even made little rip to get her started. Set these aside for later.
- Wrap bubble wrap around your rolling pin and grab a potato masher – both will give a reptilian like print when your child uses them to paint.
- Spread the paint on a cutting board .
- Roll and paint.
- They were both into it. I moved my daughter’s booster around to different parts of the dragon and my son moved around the table painting and printing.
- She loved the rolling pin.
- Let dry – I popped this up in my bathroom to dry while we played , went out in the snow and had lunch.
- Rip
- Cut
- Add glue
- Add the spikes!
- He had fun with the fire .
- Let dry and cut out.
- Hang up and celebrate the year of the dragon!
Books About Chinese New Year
D is for Dancing Dragon: A China Alphabet
My First Chinese New Year
Bringing in the New Year
Ring in Chinese New Year with these fun kids crafts and my two favorite books about Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the rabbit so grab your cotton balls for some fun rabbit crafts. After being away all week I planned to have a Groundhog Day craft and book post ready but my head is still on Tennessee time and so is my baby, which changed my plan. So if you have a ground hog day craft and want to be featured in tomorrow’s post ( I have books), please email me a link and I will be happy to add it.
Chinese New Year Picture Books
My First Chinese New Year
Bringing in the New Year
I am so blessed , after giving birth I have had so many wonderful friends offer help and guest posts for No Time For Flash Cards. This one is from a dear friend Amanda from ohAmanda and Impress Your Kids , she is sure to impress you with this cute and tasty edible activity!
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Is this the yummiest, cutest and most fun thing you have ever seen?! I saw this idea in a magazine and knew I had to try it. Well, after the panda-monium and panda-venture in the kitchen, I knew I had to share it with you! It’s an easy fun snack (or a full meal when coupled with some stir-fry) that introduces kids to new tastes and flavors, helps them with handling a knife and opens up conversations about pandas, other countries and cooking!
All you need is 1.5 cups of uncooked sticky/sushi rice, some celery stalks and a can of pitted black olives.
Cook the sticky rice according to directions. (We actually made ours with long-grain white rice by adding 3tb of rice vinegar, 1tb of sugar, 1.5tsp of salt after it was cooked)
While you’re waiting for it to cook, set aside a few whole olives for your panda’s ears. Then, give kids a butter knife and let them work on slicing the olives around its’ equator. My 4 year old could get about 3 cuts total on the olive.
My almost 2 year old? Well, he tried!
Then take a 1/4c or 1/2c measuring cup and firmly pack rice into it. Turn them over on a plate or waxed paper and carefully remove to leave a mound of rice!
Use your whole olives as the panda’s ears. Then take your slices and use as eyes, an tiny down nose and an upturned smile! Cut a few pieces of celery to resemble bamboo and you’ve got your own panda playmates!
My kids loved eating their pandas for dinner (along with soy sauce, broccoli and chicken). While they ate I read them two panda books that I just happened to have in our stash:
Panda Cake
This is the cutest story about a Mama Panda who is making a special panda cake “that only pandas can make”! She sends her two sons to the market to buy the ingredients. The oldest panda decides to steal the ingredients from his animal friends (cherries from the birds, eggs from the duck, etc.) and then runs off to the fair to spend Mama’s money. While he’s gone, the animals visit Mama and demand their food back. But it’s too late—the panda cake has been baked. So, they all sit down to tea and cake! The animals are happy but when the young panda returns home, he’s sad to see his cake eaten up! This book has sweet illustrations and a fun cadence. It looks like it is out of print but I found it at the thrift store a few weeks ago and couldn’t pass it up!
Panda in the Park by Anna Milbourne
This was my daughter’s very first book. It’s an Usborne Look-Through book and tells the story of a panda playing hide-and-seek with his animal friends. It’s perfect for toddlers because of the bright colors, the bold questions and the fun holes and layers on the pages. It’s still one of my favorite books to read!
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Amanda is a former Children’s Pastor turned stay-at-home mom. She blogs her crafty parenting endeavors at Impress Your Kids and her daily life at ohAmanda. She is also a 2010 Disney Mom, a bibliophile and long time lover of purple!
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Tiger Puppet
Chinese New Year is February 14th this year, and it’s high time we make a Chinese New Year craft to celebrate! This tiger puppet is easy and promotes imaginative play, my little man sat this one out, he had an eye appointment a few hours earlier and had ” clouds in the way” his eyes were dilated for it and he was not interested in anything close up. He did play with it while I made dinner though!
- Gather your materials. You will need a paper bag, black construction paper, kid scissors, adult scissors, glue, googly eyes, some white paper ( we used foam because we were out of white- oops), orange paint, paint brush( or roller), and a marker.
- Start by drawing a nose and mouth. Using permanent maker works well , you can make it with paper as well.
- Paint the paper bag with orange paint. I love using these rollers for young kids, they are easy to get good coverage with without too much effort and also dries quickly!
- While they are painting cut the paper into one strip.
- When they are done hand them the paper ( if they are old enough to cut) and scissors to cut stripes.
- Time to glue! Glue the stripes on the tiger .
- While they are gluing cut out a tummy from the white paper.
- Glue the tummy and eyes on.
- I cut the bottom of the painted bag off ( so it fit on my son’s arm) and used that to make 2 ears, and glued them on.
- Let dry.
Books
Bringing in the New Year
Dragon Dancing
Legend of the Chinese Dragon (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition)
I have always loved this craft, I don’t know the first time I made one but it’s been years and they always turn out beautifully and if you make a bunch they will turn your house into a true Chinese New Years Celebration !
- Gather your materials. You will need a red piece of construction paper , some crayons or markers, scissors, double stick tape or stapler and some gold glitter glue.
- Cut a small strip off the end of the paper and set aside.
- Have your child color with crayons or markers. I don’t use paint with this craft because the paint has in the past made the lanterns brittle and they ripped.
- Add your glitter glue ! Using glitter glue makes it so the paper doesn’t get saturated and brittle. Let dry.
- Fold and cut into the fold, start about 1.5 inches into the paper and leave the margin on the other side too.
- Add double stick tape to one side ( top and bottom) and attach the other side to it.
- Using the strip of paper you set aside earlier, tape into a handle.
