This years Chinese New Year falls on February 10th 2024 and is set to be the lucky year of the Dragon based on the Chinese zodiac.

The new year festivities include hanging red and gold decorations, fireworks, family reunions, delicious foods, gifting money in red envelopes and celebrations with dragon and lion dancing.

The celebrations will start from February 10th and culminates on February 24th in 2024. If you would like to get creative during this time, what better way to do this than by making your own Chinese dragons!

This craft is suitable for toddlers and preschoolers with adult supervision and help. It’s a great way for children to learn about Chinese New Year, expand on vocabulary and practice fine motor skills.

So let’s get started, this is what you will need:

• Coloured A4 card
• Crepe paper
• Coloured lollipop sticks
• Stickers and gems
• Self adhesive wiggle eyes
• Cotton wool
• Pritt stick glue
• Sticky tape
• Safety scissors
• Pencil
• Dragon head template

1. You can make your own dragon template or use this free template download created by Craft with Mei:

2. An adult will need to draw around the template onto card with a pencil and then cut out the dragon heads, in preparation for the craft.

3. Help your child add the lollipop sticks on the back with sticky tape. If your child is older they may be able to do this themselves.

4. On the front your child will have great fun putting on the stickers and wiggle eyes.

5. Pop some glue above the eye and have your child on stick on a piece of cotton wool for the dragon eyebrows.

6. Cut three strips of the crepe paper and using pritt stick glue, have your child place them on the back of the dragon for the tail.

Turn your dragon around and you will now have a completed Chinese dragon hurray! Watch your child wave their dragons around with delight.

We took this craft to our local toddler group to share and it was a huge success with the children and adults too! The below is how ours turned out. In the group we used tissue paper instead of crepe paper, which is a great alternative and added the use of felt tip pens.

My two year old (34 months) created the blue and red dragon, my one year old (21 months) created the green dragon. Both with my supervision and help. They have been playing with their dragons and talking about them ever since, which is fantastic.

I hope you enjoy making your Chinese dragons and wish you good fortune for the year ahead!

Feel free to share this post and let me know what you think in the comments, I would love to hear about your results.

Happy Chinese Dragon making! 🙂

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