Year of the Snake Crafts for Kids

This year’s Lunar New Year marks the beginning of the year of the snake. Most people see snake as a negative because they are thought to be secretive, devious and jealous, but they can also be intuitive, diligent and persuasive. Celebrate the year of the snake at home or in the classroom with these fun ideas.

Top Marks has a simple spiral snake you can paint or decorate with markers for Lunar New Year. Since it’s showing dots you could also easily do this with dot markers.

Miss Panda Chinese has another printable spiral snake with a face you can color in and decorate. You can also print it on red paper. That page also has some words in Chinese you can practice while you craft.

Red Ted Art has collected all of their snake themed crafts into one page so you can pick out a few to try. One of my favorites is this folded paper snake from Craftiments, which uses strips of construction paper for the body and a painted piece of cardboard tube for the head.

Or use little cups and tissue paper to make a super cute snake puppet with this tutorial from Alpha Mom. This one is so fun for kids to make and to play with. If doing this one in a classroom, each child can make one cup and you can put them together to make a class snake decoration.

Xiao Panda Preschool has some cute Chinese zodiac printables on Teachers Pay Teachers, and you can get lots of ideas from her blog about Chinese New Year activities for preschool. You could also add a zodiac animals puzzle or adorable mini animals to your classroom for the season.

And while this one has nothing specific to do with Lunar New Year, I wanted to share this tutorial for making salt dough snakes from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls. It’s easy and fun to do and kids can paint them or decorate them in different ways.

My brother went through a phase where he was obsessed with maps. He loved to look at maps and he would draw maps of places real and imagined. He even drew maps that followed our route when we’d go to visit our grandparents in another state!

I assume there are still kids who go through map phases, and kids with an interest in history and how things got to be the way they are. Both kinds of kids will enjoy the book Borders: Understanding the Lines that Unite and Separate Us by Karim Ressouni-Demigneux, with illustrations by Karine Maincent.

The book describes how the original borders were natural, such as oceans, rivers, mountains and deserts, and while some of those borders are still in use today, many borders are human made, decided by treaties or carved out by colonizers. It covers the history of people congregating in one place and how city-states evolved into empires, how maps are drawn and how human conflicts can reshape borders.

There are stories about walls that reinforce borders, how borders work in the air and at sea, how people cross borders with passports or as refugees and how climate change is altering the borders of some countries.

You’ll also learn some fun border facts like the fact that if you stand in the middle of the bridge over the Zambezi River you can be in four countries at once because that’s where the borders of Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe meet. Or how there is only one border crossing between India and Pakistan that’s closed each night in an elaborate ceremony.

The book talks about time zones, border towns and places where countries and parts of countries are inside other countries and places where borders are less important such as the European Union.

While there are serious subjects in the book, it’s still a fun read that’s sure to interest those kids around ages 8-12 who like travel, maps and weird but true facts.

About the book: 72 pages, hardcover, published 2026 by Blue Dot Kids Press. Suggested retail price $21.95.

Have you read?

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