Year Of The Tiger

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!

1. 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.
2. Start by drawing a nose and mouth. Using permanent maker works well , you can make it with paper as well.
3. 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!
4. While they are painting cut the paper into one strip.
5. When they are done hand them the paper ( if they are old enough to cut) and scissors to cut stripes.
6. Time to glue! Glue the stripes on the tiger .
7. While they are gluing cut out a tummy from the white paper.
8. Glue the tummy and eyes on.
9. 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.
10. Let dry.

Books

Bringing in the New Year by Grace Lin is a wonderful book to explain Chinese New Year and some of the customs that comes along with it to your preschooler. The illustrations are bright and help explain the festivities and preparations that go into the celebration.  The book culminates with a fold out page with a huge dragon briging in the new year. There is also a great explanation of the holiday for parents at the back of the book.

Dragon Dancing by Carole Lexa Schaefer is a story with a great imagination. A preschool teacher is reading her class a story about a dragon and when the class goes to art they create a birthday dragon and let their imaginations soar! The illustrations gradually change from the children parading as a dragon to a dragon in the wilderness of China, and back again when the teacher calls them in from the playground. My son loved it but was quite concerned that the dragon ate the children, once I reassured him that the were imagining we were set!

Legend of the Chinese Dragon (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition) by Marie Sellier , Catherine Louis and Wang Fei is a great book about the legend of how the children of China wanted to put an end to tribal fighting and created a dragon from all the tribes different animals. I like this book , I like how the  text in English and Chinese characters , the traditional calligraphy and beautiful illustrations. My son loved the illustrations and the story kept his attention as well.