Make Fun Paper Lanterns for Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is coming up soon (Jan. 28, to be exact) and it’s a lot of fun to talk about the traditions surrounding the holiday and to make crafts related to it.

Several times over the years we have gone to a presentation our local library does related to Chinese New Year, where they talk about the traditions and have traditional dancers (and a dragon).

A classic kid craft for Chinese New Year is making paper lanterns. They are made from red paper because red scares the dragon away.

I like this spin on Chinese lanterns from NurtureStore, where they used sparkly paint to decorate them and did a couple of different construction methods.

While you’re checking that tutorial out, make sure you don’t miss Cathy’s other great content for Chinese New Year including sensory writing, a few different dragon crafts, counting in Chinese and more. So much fun!

Do you celebrate Chinese New Year or do anything special for it with your kids? I’d love to hear about it! It’s the year of the rooster so I’ll have to pull together some rooster crafts soon.

[Photo via NurtureStore.]

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Celebrate the Year of the Dragon

I love the idea of unit studies, which can be done at school, in a homeschool environment or just for fun at home as a way to learn about something specific your kids might be into (or maybe that you are interested in and want them to know more about).

Simply Learning Together put together a homeschool unit study on the Vikings, which sounds like a lot of fun, first off, but it also walks you through the process of how she develops a unit study for her kids so you can do it, too.

It’s a pretty simple process that involves going to the library, reading and researching yourself, then developing some activities and lessons based on what you have learned.

This unit study for the Vikings, for example, shares the books she read and how she planned out the activities. In the post you’ll find a link to a printable map they used, and she talks about different activities they did including baking bread, having a super cute Viking lunch (a sandwich with banana horns to make it look like a Viking helmet!), working with runes, having a snack in “Viking horns” (waffle cones) as well as music, language arts and notebook activities they did.

You could definitely build off these ideas using the books available in your local public library or through doing your own research to find more information and activities your kids might be interested in depending on their age. You could throw in some Viking mythology, for example (I love Norse Mythology for Smart People as a source). Add some STEM with this how to build a Viking ship activity from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus, or make a Viking shield out of cardboard with this idea from This Crafty Family. There are tons of great ideas out there once you start looking!

[Photo: Simply Learning Together]

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