Chinese New Year Crafts

This Saturday we had our Chinese New Year Party.  I was assisted by my lovely coworkers who led a Chinese New Year storytime and even led the children on a parade throughout all the different departments of the library.  The children were very excited at the opportunity to run around with noise makers in the library.  I was of course in charge of the crafts!

Dragon Pencil Critters

I try to take advantage of the fact that our office has an AccuCut  (thank you thank you thank you!) whenever possible.  I recently discovered one for "Pencil Critters", which is basically just a paper cut-out that you zig-zag fold and stick on a pencil and it looks like a critter.  I thought these would be the perfect "bodies" for the kids to make dragons.  I printed out dragon faces that they colored, cut out, and glued to the critters.  I also cut various shapes out of construction paper for them to give their dragons scales and spikes.  They really enjoyed making the dragons.  When the group of kids came out of their storytime, the majority of the kids wanted to make their dragon critters before their Chinese lanterns.

Paper Lanterns

While I realize this is one of those crafts that tends to get overdone, I still wanted to do this one because it's a classic (I remember making one as a kid) and I thought it would be fun for the kids to take their paper lanterns on the parade throughout the library.  Also, it is so easy to set up and the only materials you need are construction paper, scissors, and a stapler!  I enjoyed seeing the kids get creative with this craft.  They colored their paper in so many different ways before cutting it out and turning in into a lantern.  One boy even knew how to write his name in Chinese!