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

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Learning Activities for the Year of the Horse

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

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