Chinese New Year

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Chinese Lunar New Year is a Spring festival, occurring around January to February each year (which is actually the middle of summer for us!). It always feels like a week long party of dumplings, red lanterns, lion dances, firecrackers and LOTS of noise. So, of course, my kids are fascinated! They love dumplings! They love learning about the symbols and traditions. They can retell (most of) the Chinese New Year story, and are super excited to learn the new animal of the year.

With 2017’s Lunar New Year fast approaching (the Year of the Rooster will kick off on January 28th), I thought I would do a little research on Chinese New Year crafts and activities, to tap into their fascination. (JJ’s already started making paper lanterns, and has plans to set up a shop to sell them, so I can tell she’s keen!)

I found some really awesome ideas, so I thought I would share them here, in case you’d like to start planning too!  (And also so I have all these great ideas in one place, making it super easy for me to find them all again next year, lol.)

the most awesome Chinese New Year ideas for kids, to help kids learn about and celebrate the Chinese Spring Festival (Lunar New Year)

 

 

12 Awesome Chinese New Year Activities for Kids

Is it rude to start an ‘awesome list’ with one of our own activities? Haha! Last year JJ made a cute Hong Bao (red envelope) craft to give out to her friends. She loved making these so much, that she ended up making about a dozen!

Gift of Curiosity has a great idea to recreate a traditional Chinese instrument called the Bolang Gu, or pellet drum.

Or you could make your own Chinese gong like the one on Kid World Citizen! How awesome is it?

Messy Little Monster has a really do-able version of the classic Chinese dragon puppet craft. I love that you can make the head and tail out of the one paper plate.

Check out this amazing sensory tray using red rice and gold chick peas from Tuff Spot Play. My kids would go bonkers if they came home to this!

I love Clare’s Little Tot’s version of Chinese lanterns. The double colour layers make this kid-made craft really pop!

If you want to really up your lantern game however, check out this range of cool DIY Chinese lanterns from Marie’s Pastiche.

Or have you ever thought to make a Chinese lantern out of a mini cheese wheel? Ha! We made these one year – they were fun and yum!

Another ‘healthy’ idea – Make some easy Chinese fortune ‘cookies’ using foil liners, from Laughing Kids Learn.

Perhaps not a ‘traditional’ activity, but how cool is this Chinese New Year inspired slime from Little Bins for Little Hands. Don’t you just want to dig your fingers in and squelch!

This cork stamped Chinese lantern art idea from Let’s Go Fly A Kite looks effective. I love how they used newspaper print for the background buildings too.

These egg carton Chinese dragons from Happiness is Homemade are fabulous! I would add horns to the head too.

The most awesome Chinese Lunar New Year activities for kids

To learn more:

Kid World Citizen has a great post explaining the symbolism of the Chinese dragon, including all the animals that contribute to it’s anatomy. Very cool!

Adventures of Adam has a simple retelling of the Chinese New Year story, using printable puppets.

And check out this interactive and printable notebook for kids to use while learning about Chinese Lunar New Year. It features map, culture, traditions, food, and more.

xx Danya

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Cute hong bao (red envelope or red packet) craft idea that kids can make for Chinese New Year.

Hong Bao (red envelopes) craft for Chinese New Year

My kids are fascinated with Chinese culture. One of the things that intrigues them is the giving of red envelopes, called hong bao, every Chinese New Year. I’m sure many Chinese kids are excited about the money gifts inside, but my kids are more fascinated with the red envelopes themselves. Whilst they are primarily red in colour (symbolizing good luck, and to ward off evil spirits), they are often patterned with intricate designs, sometimes featuring gold Chinese characters on the front. They can be very beautiful.

Last year we decided to try making some of our own!

Hong Bao red envelope craft for Chinese New Year

 

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Hong bao red envelope craft

We used:

 

We’re lucky enough to have received some 6×6″ square origami paper from Japan, which folds beautifully. (If you don’t have origami paper, you could use other patterned paper, or even gift wrap paper, cut into 6″ squares).

 

Here’s how we made our hong bao:

  1. Take a piece of square paper and fold it, pattern side out, so that it is almost in half, leaving a 1/2 inch overhanging along one side. Use the back of your thumb to make a nice crease.
  2. Add glue to the overhanging section and
  3. fold over to stick.
  4. Add glue to one end and
  5. double fold over to seal the bottom of the envelope.
  6. Add Chinese character designs to the front with gold paint or a metallic gold sharpie.
  7. Write little ‘Happy Chinese New Year’ notes to pop inside.
  8. Fold the top of the envelope over to close.
  9. Give out to your friends!

Hong bao (red envelope) craft idea for Chinese New Year

My 5.5 year old daughter JJ absolutely loved this hong bao craft – I think what she liked most was that  she could do the entire process by herself. She spent well over an hour outside making one after another, after another!

About half way through she switched from gold paint to a metallic gold sharpie to decorate the outside – I guess she found it easier to draw the finer details.

Making Hong Bao craft

 

Traditionally hong bao (or red envelopes) are given out at Chinese New Year (among other celebrations) by elder people to children, with notes of money inside. Luckily for me, JJ was happy to skip the money and instead added a little Happy Chinese New Year note inside instead. (Can you hear my bank account saying ‘Phew!’). She really enjoyed giving them out to her friends.

 

Hong Bao (red envelope) craft idea for Chinese New Year

 

For more Chinese New Year crafts and activities, you might like:

 

And Gong Xi Fa Cai , or happy Chinese New Year!

 

xx Danya

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Make a sheep or lamb mask as a lovely Spring, Easter, farmyard or nativity craft activity for kids. It’s also a fun craft to go along with the nursery rhyme Mary Had A Little Lamb.

DIY sheep masks with a sense of humour ~ Danya Banya

With last week being JJ’s first week of school, it was also my toddler Bee’s first week of one-on-one time at home. And how did we spend it?

By making sheep masks of course! Or more specifically ewe and lamb masks, because… adorable!

The problem is that I can’t decide which photo is the cutest. This one?

Cute sheep mask kids craft - Danya Banya

Or this one?

Lamb and sheep craft activity for kids

No, no, I’ve got it. It has to be this one.

The cutest sheep

Awww!

To make them, I cut the inner circle out of two paper plates – a dinner size plate for the ewe mask, and a snack size plate for the lamb mask. I put out some paste and cotton wool balls, and asked my 2 year & 4 month old toddler Bee to stick them on.

Toddler pasting activity - make a sheep mask from cotton wool and paper plates

Bee chattered as she went. “Dip, dip, dip, stick. Now Mummy’s turn. Now turn me. Dip, dip, dip in glue, and stick on mask. This Mummy sheep mask. That baby sheep mask. Dip, dip, dip….” and so on, in that endless way that only toddlers can.

Toddler craft Make a paper plate sheep maskPasting cotton wool to make paper plate sheep masksBee really got into this craft actually. She was very heavy handed with her dipping, so that a LOT of glue ended up on the paper plate. And she kept wanting to stick more and more cotton wool balls on, so we ended up with very, very woolly sheep!

Wet underside of the sheep masks

It took a couple of days for all that glue to dry. This above photo was taken about 12 hours or so after we’d finished gluing. I think turning the masks over like this helped to quicken the process by allowing more airflow. (If you don’t have a few days to wait, you might be better off making these yarn wrapped woolly sheep instead).

Once they were dry, I cut out some ears (from the middle part of paper plates) and glued them onto the back. Because our masks were so heavy due to being chock-a-block full of cotton balls, I also stuck some harder cardboard to the back to stiffen it a little bit. (I imagine you wouldn’t need to do this is you were a bit more conservative with your cotton wool and glue usage though.)

Sheep craft for Chinese New Year

And then have your toddler hold them up and say “Baaa”!

Sheep crafts like this can also be used to celebrate Easter, Christmas or even as a lovely Spring activity for kids. And they’re perfect for singing along to Mary Had a Lamb or Little Bo Peep.

And of course, once they are made, you can then play with them! DIY dress-ups! Actually that’s why we made two – so that the girls can role play being a mother ewe and baby lamb for a bit of imaginative farmyard animal play. (We already have a set of DIY zoo animal masks, and I have a funny feeling that I may be coaxed into making a few other farm animal ones as well…)




 

We made our sheep masks around the time of Chinese New Year (for the Year of the Sheep), but you could also make them for Spring or Christmas nativity, or any time of year really!

xx Danya

Peakle Pie
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Cheese Lanterns! For a fun & tasty twist on traditional Chinese lanterns to celebrate Chinese New Year. Chinese Lanterns made from Babybel Cheese

With three keen Mandarin students in our house (myself included), we really enjoy finding snippets of Chinese culture in our daily lives. We listen to Mandarin songs in the car (Mo Li Hua and Xiǎo Píngguǒ are current favourites). We call out the names for pumpkin (nán guā), avocado (è lí) and mushroom (mó gū) at the grocery store. We go to yum cha for dumplings (shuǐ jiǎo) every week, and we make sure to say xièxiè to the waitresses and sài tí ēn as we leave.*

So we are super excited that Chinese New Year is coming up in a few weeks time!

No doubt we’ll try our hand at making paper Chinese lanterns and hong bao (red envelopes) at some point in the next fortnight, but in the meantime I thought it would be fun to make a Chinese lantern inspired cheese snack for the kids.

Cheese Lanterns for Chinese New Year ~ Danya Banya

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How to make Babybel Cheese Chinese Lanterns

We made ours from:

  • Babybel baby cheeses, which are semi-soft cheese rounds individually covered in red wax.
  • glue on ornament tops (kinda like these ones, except mine already had the silver thread looped though the hole at the top
  • silver and red beaded string for the tassel at the bottom
  • a low temperature glue gun to stick both of these on
  • either a permanent marker or sharp knife to add the decorative details to the body of the lantern

Babybel Chinese New Year Lanterns

The extra decorations do mean they should be eaten soon afterwards, and are a bit trickier to open – but the kids thought they were cool. (They were gobbled up just as quickly as the Cheese Monsters we made last year).

Chinese New Year Cheese Lanterns

 

For more Chinese New Year arts, crafts and activities, you might also like:

 

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

 

xx Danya

* Apologies if my translations are terrible. I’m still a beginner, and what we learn is mostly aural. I believe I’ve spelled according to what we are learning in class, but Google translate doesn’t always agree with me. So please do correct me if I’ve made any embarrassing mistakes. 🙂

** This post contains affiliate links. An affiliate link means I may earn a commission or referral fee if you make a purchase through my link, without any extra cost to you. It helps to keep this little blog afloat. Thanks for your support.

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