Chinese New Year Crafts & Ideas for Kids

It is that time of the year again, where our super duper list of Best Chinese New Year Crafts for Kids comes in handy!

We love Dragon Crafts for Kids and feature many here today plus a great range of other Chinese New Year ideas. Chinese New Year 2020 is on Saturday 25th January 2020 and it is the Year of the Rat! You may also like our Animal Crafts for the Chinese Zodiac.

Chinese New Year is the most important festival in China – a literal translation is that it is the Spring Festival and the start of a new Zodiac year.

Houses are cleaned out for a fresh start and entrances to the home decorated with red decorations that signify “good fortune” or “happiness”, “wealth”, and “longevity”. As general guide, Chinese New Year crafts are all about the auspicious colour Red, the colour of wealth Gold and Dragons – plus the 12 animals of the Zodiac.  

With 2020 Being the Year of the Rat, we thought out Mouse DIY round up may be of use – switch out the colours for greys, blacks and reds, and the would make fabulous Year of the Rat Activities for Kids too.. right?

You may also specifically like this simple (free) printable Year of the Rat pop up card:

Chinese New Year Crafts for Kids

Let’s begin with Chinese Dragon DIYs

Chinese Dragon Puppet & Printable

Make your dragon craft super easy with this Chinese New Year Dragon puppet. We have created a simple print out for you to make the craft fun and easy!

Chinese Dragon Paper Plate Twirlers

Super cute and fun, complete with printables this Paper Plate Dragon Whirligigs look fabulous and are oh so easy to make. The perfect Chinese New Year decoration fort he classroom or at home!! Love. Great for preschoolers through to grown ups!

Or how about this beautiful Dancing Dragon Card to print and colour? So pretty!

Origami Dragon Bookmark Designs

We ADORE these fabulous Dragon Corner Bookmarks for Chinese New Year. Promise they re super easy and of course fun to make.

A great Dragon Paper Craft for Chinese New Year!

Chinese Dragon Masks (with Template)

Or turn your little one INTO a dragon with these fun Dragon Masks. How fabulous. Perfect for celebrating Chinese New Year! You can choose from this set – cut out the parts and make your own.. or:

Or have a go at the Printable Dragon Mask Coloring Pages!

Egg Carton Dragon for preschoolers

We do love a good recycled craft.. and this adorable dragon made from egg carton is no exception. A fabulous Egg Carton Dragon from I Heart Crafty Things. Hop over and learn how to make it today!

Cupcake Liner Chinese Dragon Art

Or have a go at this gorgeously simple Dragon Art project. Use colourful cupcake liners to complete it.

Find out more about this Dragon Craft for kids from I Heart Crafty Things.

Egg Carton Dragon Puppets for Chinese New Year

I featured this Dragon many moons ago, when I first started the round ups on Red Ted Art. I thought it was lovely then and think it is lovely now! So am sharing it with you again. Anything made from Egg Cartons is brilliant. Just a “to hand” house hold item. Add a little paint and look what you get. This one is from Activity Village. Love.Egg Carton Dragon Puppet

Or… step it up a notch and make a Puppet out of your egg carton dragon as per Family Disney! Simply gorgeous. Unfortunately the step by step guide and photos for this one are no longer available, but thought you would still like to see the photo!

Cardboard Tube Chinese Dragon

Oh my. I am getting Cardboard Tube envy, as the self crowned Cardboard Tube Queen, I wish I had thought of this fabulous dragon puppet. I LOVE IT! Learning We Like came up with the idea. So cute!

Chinese Dragon with Handprints

And another craft that makes my mummy heart melt… look at this adorable dragon’s body is made up of the children’s handprints. How cute is that. Certainly a new one for the “hand craft drawer”. Baabaabeep and her wonderful children enchant us! You can use our free dragon printable at the top of this page to combine it with the hands used here!

Paper Bag Chinese Dragon Puppet (with Printable)

I love this easy to make Chinese Dragon Paper Bag Puppet from Pink Stripey Socks!

Paper Bag Lion Masks for Chinese New Year

Or if you are looking for something a little different to the traditional Chinese Dragon Crafts, Pink Stripey Socks has these amazing Paper Bag Lion Masks to make. Wonderful!

Chinese Lantern Crafts

Dragons are super fun, especially for kids.. but lanterns.. well lanterns are just so pretty! Especially if you are able to light them up with fairy lights or tea lights. Here are some super fun DIY Chinese New Year Lantern Craft Ideas!

Red Chinese Lanterns made from paper

I remember making these as a child for “Carnival Day” (February). They are really easy to make and fun. And look great if you make lots to hang up together. These are super easy to make and great for practicing cutting skills. So make a Chinese Lantern today! You can either pop a tea light in glass in the middle or add a little handle to the top for hanging.

Lantern Fair Lights

Or.. take the same humble lantern… and make them in smaller. Then attach to fairy lights. They look soooo lovely. Chinese Lantern Fairy Lights post. A super lovely twist on the traditional lantern craft.

TP Roll Lanterns

Or back to our favourite TP Roll Crafts – make lanterns out of those! Again, fun and frugal. Check out our TP Roll Lantern post for how to.

Not only does this Chinese Lantern Suncatcher LOOK fabulous, it is also easy for preschoolers to make!!! Find out more over on The Gingerbread House!

Chinese Lantern Art Project

Love how sweet this Chinese Lantern Art Project is. Each child can make their own or they can collaborate and create one piece of art together. Visit Pink Stripey Socks for more!

Chinese Take Out Lantern

Ok.. not a “traditional” Chinese craft as such, but I just couldn’t resist  – don’t these lanterns made from “take out boxes” simply look fabulous? The idea is from Make Handmade. I love it!!

Other Chinese New Year Craft Activities and Themes

There is always an “ecclectic” section of crafts at the end? I guess I could have sorted some into “Paper Chinese New Year Crafts” or “Animal Chinese New Year crafts”.. but sometimes it is easier just just mixed them all up together.. so.. what do you think of these fun crafts?!

Chinese Money Red Envelopes

The Chinese like to give money in red envelopes for prosperity and good luck. Have a go at making your OWN red envelops, beautifully decorated with this Chinese New Year Red Money Envelope craft. Such a fabulous Paper Craft for kids!

Paper Plate Fans for Chinese New Year

A great idea is to combine paper plates with craft sticks to make these fabulous looking Chinese New Year fans! I love the combination of gold, red and black to give them that fabulous Chinese New Year look. More information and detailed photos on The Pinterested Parent!

Chinese Paper Fan

Nothing quite like a simple Chinese Fan! I thought the “materials needed” section make this sound terribly complicated.. I am sure you can make equally pretty fans with less “things”…. e.g. use a gold pen instead of stamps or cut out gold paper. The ideas is from originally from Craft Kaboose but the sight is no longer available. Here are great alternative instructions.

Chinese Drum – the prefect noise maker for preschoolers

Make your own drum to ward off the evil spirits – this one is made from an old CD (so you get a nice bit of noise) and beads. So easy and fun! From St Louise Public Library Parents (go the library!!).

Paper Plate Drums for Chinese New Year

Or alternatively try this Paper Plate Chinese New Year Drum for kids to make. Hop over to Gift of Curiosity for these easy instructions!

Goldfish Kite made from Toilet Paper Rolls

More Toilet Paper Roll Fun, with Lightly Enchanted who sure enchanted me, when they made these adorable Goldfish out of my favourite Cardboard Tubes! I think they look ADORABLE and I can just imagine these fluttering in the breeze. They are fabulous.

Goldfish Origami for Chinese New Year

Blending cultures with some Origami for kids. Start your children on their first origami animal with these adorable little cute goldfish. I always mean to try out more origami. These would look great as a mobile. And if you fancy some “fancy origami” paper and don’t have any, check out my free printables page with links to designs to print off at home! Crafty Crafted has a step by step guide!

Sand in My Toes shows us how to make thse cute Chinese Good Luck Ornaments for kids!

Fingerprint Animal Zodiac Activity

Fingerprint Zodiac Animal Activity – from the fun handprint blog – this would complement our collection of Chinese Zodica Animals really well too!

Make Your Own Fortune Cookies

Did you know that Fortune Cookies are not really eaten in China?! They have more been “invented for the Wet”, never the less I think they make a fun addition to any Chinese New Year round up.

From the AllRecipes website.. a recipe sharing fortune cookies with you. I have never made these before, but really do want to give them a go. Maybe there is time to make them for Red Ted’s nursery… mmmh. Yes, I think I will!

Paper Fortune Cookies

If the “real” edible Fortune Cookies proove a little difficult.. why don’t you make this much easier Paper Fortune Cookie version instead. Super fun and easy. LOVE Paper Crafts!

Best Chinese New Year Picture Books for Kids:

Note: the following contains amazon affiliate links added for your convenience. SHould you choose to purchase via these links, I will earn a small commission that goes towards the upkeep of this site.

• My first Chinese New Year (UK Readers)
• Ruby’s Chinese New Year (UK Readers)
• The Great Race (The Story of the Chinese Zodiac) (UK Readers)
• Bringing in the New Year (UK Readers)
• The Runaway Wok (UK readers)
• Lion Dancer (UK Readers)
• Celebrating Chinese New Year (UK Readers)

Have a VERY HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR and do try out some crafts!

More great Dragon Crafts for Preschool and older here:

And for Year of the Rat Crafts – adapt these Mouse DIYs:

You may also like our Animal Crafts for the Chinese Zodiac.