Celebrate the Year of the Dragon

Chinese New Year (also sometimes called Lunar New Year) is February 10 this year, and to celebrate we’ve got a great collection of new year’s crafts. 2024 is the year of the dragon. Dragons are said to be charismatic, intelligent, confident and naturally gifted and lucky.

Dragon years are thought to bring good luck, and this year is the year of the wood dragon, which is expected to be a good time for growth, progress and abundance, which I think we would all take.

This printable Chinese zodiac placemat coloring page is so cute, and it will help you figure out what animal’s year everyone in the family was born in and what that means. You can download it from 3 Boys and a Dog.

Tot Schooling has printable lanterns for each of the animals in the Chinese zodiac that you can print, color and assemble to decorate for the holiday. They also have a collection of easy color by number pages, one for each animal.

In the Playroom has some cute printable activities including a coloring page, maze, word search, word scramble, do a dot page, follow the lines, I spy and a number puzzle. They are free to download.

Speaking of I Spy, Paper Trail Design has another cute I spy page with a new year theme.

Chalk Academy has a post full of craft ideas for Chinese New Year and explains why it’s not accurate to call it Lunar New Year (while lots of Asian cultures celebrate the new year at this time, the things we in the west typically associate with the celebration, like the zodiac, red envelopes, lanterns and dragons are really specific to Chinese culture). They also have a Lunar New Year activity pack you can buy that includes more traditions from other countries.

Messy Little Monster has a great collection of Chinese New Year crafts as well, which includes several dragon crafts if you’re looking for something specific to 2024 (though dragons are always a part of new year’s celebrations in China).

This paper plate dragon twirler from Red Ted Art is so cool and easy to make.

And don’t miss this roundup of books about the Chinese New Year if you want to learn more!

Chinese New Year Decorations

Chinese New Year Books

When my daughter was younger she had a ton of LEGO bricks, and I’m honestly a little sad we got rid of most of them because there are so many fun things to do with LEGOs outside of the kits you bought them in.

I love seeing all the ideas people have for LEGO building challenges, and I have shared some ideas for LEGO games before, but I saw one on Pinterest the other day that I felt was worth a mention.

This one is for those ’80s and ’90s kids who spent sick days home from school watching “The Price is Right”: LEGO Plinko!

For those who don’t know about Plinko, the original was a giant peg board set up at an angle and the contestant would drop a flat disc at the top of the board. As it moved down the board it would hit the pegs and change the way it moved, and there would be different prizes in the slots at the bottom where the piece would land.

This version from Play Party Game works on the same principle, using LEGO bricks to make the game board and marbles in place of the Plinko disc since your game board isn’t flat.

You can really use whatever bricks you have for this build, and while it shows all the pegs the same size and evenly spaced, you can play with different configurations and see what happens. It’s engineering and a game!

And while you’re playing with your LEGOs, make sure to check out this post from Kids Craft Room that includes minute to win it style games you can do with LEGO. From speed sorting to tower building as fast as you can, these ideas are sure to get you thinking about different ways to play with LEGO.

And if you need even more ideas, check out my post with LEGO building challenges you can print out for kids (and adults!) to try.

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