Chinese New Year Dragon Craft Printable
We have a fabulous Chinese New Year project for you and your little ones: a Chinese New Year Dragon Craft which you can assemble yourself. This is such a fun and quirky dragon coloring page – you can make your dragon really short and tiny… or really loooooooong and big! One set of coloring pages with lots of opportunities to customise. And the best thing? It is once again a totally free resource, brought to you in collaboration with Learning Resources.
Disclaimer: this is a collaboration with Learning Resources (a website dedicated to fun educational resources) that enables us to bring you this wonderful Christmas colouring page toy for FREE!
Chinese New Year Paper Craft: Assemble your very own Dragon
As mentioned this is such a fun project not only because it’s a dragon and you will be able to make it as short or long as you wish…
… but it allows to engage and learn about another culture and its traditions whilst developing fine motor skills (coloring skills, scissor handling skills, gluing skills). This Chinese dragon is suitable for all ages groups – you can work with preschoolers, early years, KS1 and KS2! It is perfect as a classroom activity or as part of your Chinese New Year bulletin board displays.
We designed this dragon printable PDF especially for the Year of the Dragon!
Educational opportunities
We love this Assemble Your Own Chinese New Year Dragon Project for a number of reasons:
- You get to spend time colouring and crafting with your kids or students. Some wonderful mindfulness time, during which you could listen to a topical audiobook
- You can introduce and explore topics such as New Year traditions and how New Year is celebrated differently or similar in various cultures and countries. Remember Lunar New Year is celebrated in many countries and is not just unique to Chinese culture.
- You can introduce the concept of primary and secondary colours or that of warm & cold colour families while colouring.
- You can introduce the concept of space and how to best arrange the dragon and its various parts in a given space.
- They are fabulous for fine motor skills (e.g. colouring, cutting out the Dragon parts).
How to display this Dragon Craft
This Year of the Dragon activity was designed to fit all spaces… whether at home, or in the classroom – as you can make it as “big” or as “small” as you like. We think this a particularly fun dragon to do as a classroom collaboration. Students and all colour different parts of the dragon printable and then connect them all up! They would look great:
- On a classroom door (maybe each class has a different coloured dragon?)
- On a classroom bulletin board display for Chinese New Year
- Running along the classroom walls
- Or even as a sun catcher in the window.
Extension ideas/ different uses for this dragon craft
Print the dragon on colored paper
Short on time? But want to use this dragon craft as part of your teacher’s Chinese New Year display, simply print on red paper and cut out! Will still look brilliant.
Add Chinese New Year messages
Want to add some writing opportunities? Get students to write Happy New Year messages on the dragon’s body!
Turn the dragon into a maths activity
Want to add maths? Again, you can use the dragon’s body as part of counting activities or maths activities. For early year’s you can create number bond dragons with 10 segments (maybe print body halves on different coloured paper, each 7 red and 3 yellow). For KS1 or KS2 you could even add sums or times tables.
Change your printer settings
You can use the printable in “half size” – making it a mini dragon to cut and assemble and add to project work and student’s exercise books. Or even to greeting cards.
Handprint dragon
Though we ADORE the dancing dragon’s body parts, you can also take the dragon’s face, tail and feet only and combine it with children’s handprints to make a handprint dragon too! This is a popular option with crafting dragons in the classroom. Please DO tag us on Instagram with your photos should you give the Chinese Dragon Handprints a go!
Supplies needed for the Assemble Your Own Dragon Project:
- Our free Chinese New Year Dragon printable,
- Paper,
- Colouring pens, crayons markers or paints,
- Scissors,
- Glue,
- Blue Tack or double sided tape,
- Optional: other decorative elements, e.g. torn paper/ tissue paper, eco-friendly glitter, sequins etc
Hop on over to our sponsors at Learning Resources and download your FREE Assemble Your Own Chinese New Year Dragon printable.
How to make your Chinese New Year Dragon:
1.) Download the dragon printable! Start with colouring in the individual body parts of the dragon. Take time with your dragon head and tail.. the body can be coloured in quickly… or printed straight onto coloured paper if you want to save a little time or are using this as part of a teacher’s display. Here we chose red paint and yellow paint for that warm fiery feeling.
2.) When you are done colouring cut out the individual dragon body parts. This is a great opportunity for students to practice their scissor handling skills. Don’t worry if the cuts aren’t perfect your finished Chinese dragon craft will still look adorable!
3.) Choose an area (e.g. notice board, classroom door, classroom wall, bedroom wall or window) where you wish to display the dragon. Before you stick the dragon parts on to the wall try and assemble the dragon on a flat surface such as table first. If you feel you need further parts simply go ahead and print out more and add to your dragon. You can also turn around the individual dragon parts before colouring if you need the dragon to go another direction.
Have the most of fun assembling your very own dragon!
As a Chinese New Year challenge:
- If you assemble the dragon as a class project how long a dragon can you make? Maybe do a competition and split up the class in several groups and make several dragons.
- You could make two dragons one with warm and the other with cold colours and have them dance together along the wall!
- Make a dragon with all colors of the rainbow!
I hope you have lots of fun with this wonderful Dragon Printable PDF resource and that you agree that there are lots of learning opportunities and collaboration opportunities for this fabulous free printable Chinese New Year resource. We would LOVE to see your dragons, so do remember to tag me on Instagram or send me an email with your dragon photos!! I can’t wait to see them! Wishing you all the best for your Lunar New Year Celebrations!
Remember, we have many more Chinese New Year Craft Ideas, including a free printable dragon puppet (perfect for dragon dances in the classroom), paper plate dragon twirlers and classic red Chinese lanterns!
