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

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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