Chinese New Year Fireworks Craft

Whether you are throwing a Chinese New Year party, are a teacher looking for an activity to celebrate Chinese New Year in your classroom or just want a fun rainy day craft for your own kids, this simple fireworks craft provides lots of creative leeway.

Lay out sheets of black or midnight blue construction paper. You can also used squares of stiffer dark colored poster board or cardstock. Avoid thin scrapbook papers which will not be sturdy enough for this craft.

Tell your kids or students about the tradition to set off loud fireworks and firecrackers during Chinese New Year. Talk about how Chinese traditions say the noise and bright colors of fireworks will scare away demons and bad luck as the new year begins. Talk about times Americans set off fireworks, such as our New Year's Eve and Independence Day.

Provide photos of brilliant fireworks like those set off on Chinese New Year. Use the photos to encourage your children to use good descriptive language to tell you what they see or what they remember from a time they saw fireworks before they begin the craft.

Next, tell your children they will be creating their own fireworks craft scenes. Tell them to imagine the dark paper is the night sky on Chinese New Year. Give each child a glue bottle and show them how to draw the fireworks. They may want to make small dots for scattered sparks or larger firework stars with a series of overlapping lines.

As the children finish outlining their fireworks, provide craft glitter to shake over the glue. Let the children combine the colors however they would like for their craft but help them shake the glitter to avoid wasting it and spilling on the floor.

Allow the glitter fireworks to dry for a few minutes before shaking off the extra glitter. You may shake the glitter off the fireworks craft directly into the trashcan, or shake it on a piece of clean paper. Fold the paper in half and use it as a funnel to put the extra glitter back in the glitter tubes.

When the Chinese New Year fireworks crafts have all dried completely, hang them in the windows or on your display boards at school.