Easy Activities for Lunar New Year

January 17, 2023 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Lunar New Year (also sometimes called Chinese New Year) is coming up (January 22 in 2023), and it’s a great opportunity to get kids interested in a bit of Asian culture.

One of the most common symbols of Lunar New Year is the dragon, which is said to bring luck in the new year.

Adventures in a Messy Life has a great tutorial for an upcycled dragon craft made with egg cartons and other things you might have lying around the house.

Messy Little Monster has a printable dragon mask and a printable dragon puppet, both of which would be fun for kids to cut out, color and play with. The puppet can even be folded in the middle to look like the long dragons that might be used in a parade this time of year.

Of course it’s not just about dragons, and making and playing musical instruments is another fun thing to do when learning about Lunar New year.

Chinese drums are fun and easy to make with minimal materials. Here’s a version using a wooden spoon and an old CD from Activity Village. I also have one on my blog where we made a monkey drum (bolang gu) out of paper plates and a paper towel roll.

Add some movement into your learning by coming up with yoga poses or other moves to mimic the animals of the Chinese zodiac (this idea is from Carrots are Orange). 2023 is the year of the rabbit, which is a pretty easy one. You can find more on the zodiac and which animals represent which years, here.

We’ve also got a collection of Chinese New Year books to read with kids, and you should also check out this fun, easy, classic paper lantern craft. Here’s another good roundup of Chinese New Year crafts for kids if you need more ideas!

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Games to Make with LEGO Bricks

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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