Chinese New Year Dragon Puppets

So thrilled about how these Dragon Puppets turned out for Chinese New Year!

What you need:

• Paper bag
• Construction paper for head
• Construction paper for eyes and nostrils
• Streamers for the tail
• Glitter and Sequins (optional)

What to do:

1. Fold sheet of construction paper in half and glue to top of paper bag (where it folds up) to make the head of the puppet
2. Attach streamers under the back of construction paper head for the tail
3. Cut out eyes and nostrils in desired shapes – semi-circles for eyes and teardrops for nostrils
4. Draw lines for mouth and nose with dark marker
5. Glue eyes and nostrils
6. Draw on eyeballs in dragon shape
7. Draw on eyebrows and facial expression (optional)
8. Glue on glitter and/or sequins to make pretty patterns (optional)

(I think it would be fun to attach an accordion tongue with a strip of red construction paper so it pops out of the fold…)

Kate preferred to make hers look like a lizard. She’s special like that. My crazy third child who dances to her own tune.

Tori asked me to draw cool eyebrows on her dragon. Love her. She always follows directions to a T and is so careful.

Alex used TONS of glue stick. Then he asked me draw his dragon face and I really like how it turned out and his compliments made my day. Then he pretended to fly around with it. Of course. He’s a boy. What do you think?

We’re preparing to celebrate Chinese New Year with lots of red and gold, horse pictures and crafts, yummy food…and I searched my files and found pictures of the Chinese New Year celebration we attended when we lived in Hawaii.

And I get a clean house out of it after I told the kids that tradition. Score!

We cleaned out the library of all the Chinese New Year storybooks. Liz really likes having Big Sister Storytime. Karen Katz is a favorite author. Love her illustrations!

Our plans:

• Read more books about Chinese New Year…

• Eat Chinese Food: We’ll explore flavors, colors, shapes, and the aesthetic beauty of Cantonese cooking. My kids love Chinese food and we like to try new recipes and techniques. Our Asian turkey wraps are always a hit! I need to break out my bamboo steamer and try to make some steamed dumplings…

• Learn more of the Chinese language with Mango Homeschool

I will try my hardest not to watch Mulan. Seriously.