Jennifer Lambert

A Sacred Balance

Visit Us On FacebookVisit Us On TwitterVisit Us On PinterestVisit Us On InstagramVisit Us On LinkedinCheck Our FeedVisit Us On Youtube
  • About Me
    • Favorite Resources
    • Advertising and Sponsorship
    • Copyright and Terms of Use
    • Disclosure Policy
    • Privacy Policy
  • Travel
    • Europe
      • Benelux
      • France
      • Germany
      • Greece
      • Ireland
      • Italy
      • London
      • Porto
      • Prague
    • USA
      • Chicago
      • Georgia
      • Hawaii
      • Ohio
      • Utah
      • Yellowstone and Teton
  • Homeschool
    • Book Lists
    • How Do We Do That?
    • Notebooking
    • Subjects and Styles
    • Unit Studies
  • Military
    • Deployment
    • PCS
  • Health
    • Recipes
    • Essential Oils
    • Fitness
    • Mental Health
    • Natural Living
    • Natural Beauty
  • Family
    • Frugal
  • Faith
  • Reviews

© 2021 Jennifer Lambert · Copyright · Disclosure · Privacy · Ad

Celebrating Chinese New Year

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

January 29, 2014 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

Chinese New Year celebrations traditionally end after 15 days, starting on Chinese New Year’s Eve and continuing till the Lantern Festival. 

This new year usually coincides with the spring equinox.

We usually try to celebrate the first evening with crafts and yummy food – either takeout or homemade.

Each Chinese year is associated with an animal sign according to the Chinese zodiac cycle, which features 12 animal signs in the order Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.

Chinese New Year traditions include: putting up decorations, offering sacrifices to ancestors, eating reunion dinner with family on New Year’s Eve, giving red money envelopes and other gifts, firecrackers and fireworks, and watching lion and dragon dances.

Lucky food is served during the 16-day festival season, especially on the New Year’s Eve family reunion dinner. Fish is a must as it sounds like “surplus” in Chinese and symbolizes abundance. Dumplings shaped like Chinese silver ingots are shared as a sign of the family unit and prosperity. People eat Niángāo (glutinous rice cake) to symbolize a higher income or position as it sounds like “year high.” 

Don’t lose the luck!

  • Don’t sweep up on New Year’s Day, otherwise you’ll ‘sweep all your luck away’.
  • Don’t eat porridge for breakfast, otherwise you’ll ‘become poor in the upcoming year’.
  • Don’t wash your clothes and hair (on New Year’s Day), otherwise you’ll ‘wash fortune away’.

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

Dragon Puppets:

  • 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)
Drawing Dragon Faces for Puppets

(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.

Dragon Girl

Tori asked me to draw cool eyebrows on her dragon.

Dragon Puppets

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.

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!

Chinese New Year Storytime with Sister

Resources:

  • Mask crafts from Better than Mummy
  • Learn more of the Chinese language with Mango Homeschool
  • Read more books about Chinese New Year…
  • As my kids get older, we watch movies in Chinese and about Chinese culture and history
  • 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…Also easy recipes are lo mein and fried rice. Slow cooker Asian ribs are a crowd please.
Chinese Feast

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

Gong hei fat choy 恭喜发财

Xīnnián kuàilè 新年快乐

Share1
Tweet
Pin39
Share
40 Shares
You might also like:

Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: art, Chinese New Year, crafts, homeschool, New Year, tutorial

Suggested ResourcesEarth Mama OrganicsProSchool Membership

Archives

Popular Posts

10 DIY Gifts with Essential Oils10 DIY Gifts with Essential Oils
Natural Remedies for HeadacheNatural Remedies for Headache
10 Natural Remedies to Keep on Hand10 Natural Remedies to Keep on Hand
Homemade SunscreenHomemade Sunscreen
Henna Hands CraftHenna Hands Craft
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Reject Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT