Bunny Rabbit Face Origami for Preschool on Lunar New Year

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I have shared our easy Bunny Rabbit Face Origami for Preschool before! After all making bunny crafts is SUCH a core part of spring and Easter Crafting. But with the Year of the Rabbit looming, I thought it would be fun to share this easy rabbit craft with you again. And show you how easy it is to use it as part of some Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year Cards too! I have also added a handy “Happy New Year” printable for this especially.

easy year of the rabbit card

If you like this cute little Bunny Rabbit Face for Beginners, you may want to give the next “level up” Origami Rabbit a go too:

rabbit origami
This origami rabbit is still relatively easy and good for beginners!

Supplies needed for your Year of the Rabbit Origami:

Making this origami rabbit craft really only needs paper. However, once you have made your rabbit faces, you can add additional details or turn them into fabulous greeting cards!

  • Square piece of paper in Lunar New Year colours – red, pink, purple nad blue and work well*
  • Markers for decorating
  • Printable “Happy New Year” messages (or use our printable as a guide to write your own)
  • Cardstock for the greeting card
year of the rabbit
Remember to also check out the unlucky things!

Check out China Highlights for this list of lucky and and unlucky elements for Year of the Rabbit individuals! Use this as a giude as to what colours to make your origami rabbits in!

If you would like some worksheets to go with this craft – do check out our Teacher’s Pay Teachers store! For the price of less than a cup of coffee, you can get a 4 page printable activity pack. It includes, a lesson plan overview, a one page origami worksheet, a one page “pop up card” how to and some “Happy New Year” printables! Enjoy.

Year of the Rabbit Dates

Taking a look at the Chinese calendar, here are some detailed history Year of the Rabbit Dates!

  • 19th February 1939 – 7th February 1940
  • 6th February 1951 – 26th January 1952
  • 25th January 1963 – 12th February 1964
  • 11th February 1975 – 30rd January 1976
  • 29th January 1987 – 16th February 1988
  • 16th February 1999 – 4th February 2000
  • 3rd February 2011 – 22nd January 2012

Key upcoming dates for the year of the rabbit are – 2023 – 2035! So the…

Next Year of the Rabbit

… is in 2023. Starting on the 22nd January 2023 and lasts right through to 9th February 2024. The upcoming year of the rabbit is the year of the water rabbit! We last had the Year of the Rabbit in 2011 was the Gold Rabbit.

The year of the rabbit rotates through:

  • Gold rabbit
  • Water rabbit
  • Wood rabbit
  • Fire rabbit
  • Earth rabbit

Apparently my birth year rabbit is the Wood Rabbit! I will let you work out what year I was born! Teehee!

Rabbit Characteristics

Rabbit people tend to be outgoing and kind! They are often consider having good luck, but that is also often as a result of being hard working. They have a tendency to be chatty too and like being around people.

How to make a Origami Rabbit for Lunar New Year:

You can watch the origami video tutorial or follw the step by strep instructions below!

How to make an Origami Rabbit Face project – Step By Step instructions!

simple origami bunny

1 ) Take a square piece of paper and fold it across the diagonal. Make a neat crease. You should now have a triangle.

2) Fold the long edge up by about ¾ inch.

3) Fold down the centre to make a central guide line. Open up again.

simple origami bunny rabbit

4) Bring the bottom right hand edge to meet the central perpendicular.

5) Repeat with the bottom left hand edge.

6) Fold up a small triangle to shape the bunny’s face (this is also like a little bunny tail).

7) Flip over and tuck the top part of the head in (to shape the face some more).

simple origami bunny face
Simple origami rabbit face craft

8) Decorate with pens and paper!

simple lucky rabbit cards
Have fun with Year of the Rabbit Crafts!

9) Once you have your little bunny rabbit face, stick it to some card stock and add your printable Happy New Year greetings too!

Aren’t they sweet?

You can also make a super simple Pop Up Rabbit Card:

The download “pack” in our Teacher’s Pay Teacher’s Store also has these simple pop-up card instructions, with step phots on a one page worksheet! Do grab yourself a copy! Perfect for working in the classroom or at a library event or similar!

simple pop up card

To make a pop up rabbit card, take a piece of card stock (in our case A5 folded in half), an a piece of card – I used 1.5cm x 6 cm.

simple pop up

Fold the strip of card into 4 equal sizes. And glue to the card stock. And then glue the paper rabbit to this box pop up shape.

The height of your origami rabbit + 1.5cm must be the same as the height of your card. So if you are using different dimension in your card stock, you may be able to either make a bigger origami rabbit, or you may have to make it a tiny bit smaller. Else the ears of your bunny rabbit will peep over the edge of the card. Alternatively you can make the “pop up bit” a little narrow – e.g. make it stick out only 1cm.

simple origami rabbit pop up

Add your Happy New Year in Chinese to your card and finished! You can also glue the Happy New Year printable to the front of the card if you wish!

More Chinese New Year Activities and Crafts

I hope you feel inspired to give Origami a go this Chinese New Year.. in the meantime, we have some more wonderful Chinese New Year resources for you:

Great Chinese New Year's Ideas for Kids
The FREE Dragon Puppet and Dragon Twirlers are particularly popular every year!

You can grab the FREE Dragon Puppet Printable and FREE Dragon Twirlers today!

More ways to explre the Zodiac Animals here:

Exploring the Chinese Zodiac Animals is a fun way to involve kids of all ages and expose them to Chinese culture! Here is a selection of activities to make exploring all twelve zodiac animals.. from Year of the Tiger to the Year of the Rat and more!

Exploring Chinese New Year with Animal Crafts for the Chinese Zodiac
Exploring the Chinese Zodiac is fun and easy! You will find monkey, pig, ox, rat inspiration and more!

I do hope you enjou our collection of fun activities and have a fantastic start to the Chinese year!

You can also watch the bunny origami face project on youtube: