Chinese New Year Dragons

This is a simple craft for home or classroom use. Use it to help children explore Chinese New Year and Chinese festival traditions. Since the dragon is always used in the Chinese New Year Dragon Parade, this craft is not limited to any particular year. Talk to children about the meaning behind the Chinese New Year Dragon Parade. Tell students that firecrackers and loud poppers are sounded to scare away evil spirits, so your dragon craft project will include jingle bells. Also talk to your children about why red and gold are important colors in Chinese traditions. Both these colors symbolize good luck and wealth which are important for the Chinese New Year. You may assign this as an individual or group craft project.

What You Need:

Empty egg cartons

Bright colors of paint

Newspapers or disposable plastic tablecloths.

Paint brushes.

Sponges.

Scissors.

Hole Punch.

Ribbon or yarn.

Jingle bells.

Pompoms.

Pipe cleaners.

Tissue paper in bright colors.

Wiggle eyes.

Glue stick or glue gun.

What To Do:

Cut the cups out of an empty, cardboard egg carton. Cover the work area with newspaper or a disposable, plastic tablecloth. Provide lots of bright colors of paint, especially red and gold, for the children to paint with.

Paint the inside of all the cups black. Then paint the outside gold or red. Use paintbrushes or sponges to add red or gold dragon scales on all the egg carton cups. Select one egg cup to be the Chinese New Year dragon's head. Glue a strip of red ribbon coming out of the black inside for a tongue. Then add two wiggle eyes on the top of the dragon's head. Use tissue paper, pom poms, and pipe cleaners to add more horns and scales for texture on the head and body.

Punch a hole in each side of the dragon's body segments. Thread a piece of ribbon or yarn through each of the segments so the egg cups all sit with the red or gold up and the black inside facing down. Glue or tie small bells at intervals along the dragon's body. Now, glue the dragon's head to the top of one of the end body segments. When the Chinese New Year dragon has dried completely, tie a long piece of ribbon through a hole in the segment just behind the head and use it to make the dragon dance along the floor. Play traditional Chinese festival music and let the children or students hold their own Chinese New Year Dragon Parade. You can even carry a small MP3 player and speaker and let your students hold a parade down the school hallway with their Chinese New Year dragons.