Chinese New Year Activities and Crafts

Chinese New Year Sensory Tub

Lion Dance Orange Peel Numbers

Angpow Counting Game

"Lo Hei" Chinese New Year Meal Craft

Angpow Packet Craft

Chinese "Happiness" Plaque

More Chinese New Year activities and crafts:

Chinese New Year Small World Play

Lion Dance Puppets

Chinese New Year Sensory Tub

My youngest son, Dooey (2.7 years) is really into sensory play at the moment, so I created this mini sensory tub for him to explore.

What we used:
Rice (dyed red)
Gold coins
Orange peel
Angpow packets (for him to transfer the rice into and empty)
Tin containers (for extra sound)
Scoops for transferring
(Another idea I had, but didn't use in this tub was the idea of adding the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac for the child to discover and arrange according to the order they came in the race).

Orange Peel Numbers

This activity was based on the lion dance that is performed around shops and condos in Singapore during the build up to Chinese New Year.  During the dance, the lion is offered oranges (believed to symbolise prosperity and health), which he consumes, leaving an arrangement of "lucky" numbers which he forms out of the orange peel.   The Chinese typically make a note of the numbers and then gamble on them!

I created an outline of our numbers (I followed the year, 2016, but also created individual mats for the boys birth years, 2011 and 2013).  I peeled a couple of oranges and tore up the peel.  The boys then arranged the peel in the shape of the numbers.  It was also a fun way to teach them the year of their birth and to help Dooey (2.7 years) gain a familiarity with the shape of the numbers.

What we used:

Paper

Printer

Laminator

Orange Peel

Bowl

Chinese New Year Plaques

When I think of Chinese New Year in Singapore I think of red and gold plaques with animals and/or Chinese symbols for wealth, health, good luck and happiness stuck to shop windows or hanging from the ceilings - if not the plaques then those gigantic paper pineapples!

Today we made some plaques of our own - an activity that combined writing and threading skills.

I downloaded images of Chinese symbols for happiness and laminated them.  I gave each child a symbol, tracing paper and a black marker pen (Dooey chose green!) and let them trace the symbol. Later we mounted the symbols onto red card and added some gold thread, which Wugs threaded.

What we used:
Chinese symbol (laminated)
Tracing paper (optional, the child could copy)
Glue
Red card
Gold thread

Making Angpow Packets

We have really been getting into the spirit of Chinese New Year this week and decided that today we would make some angpow packets.  In Chinese tradition, the red envelopes (sometimes refered to as "lai see") are usually filled with money notes and presented by the older generation to the younger one.  They symbolise good luck for the year ahead.   Being a part-Chinese family, we follow this tradition and the children will be receiving angpow from us and their grandparents this year.

I designed a template for the packets based on an A4 sheet of red paper.  Once I had cut them out and glued the edges, I presented the packets to the boys for decoration.  Usually the decoration is in gold and includes Chinese symbols for good luck and happiness.  Once they had finished, we added chocolate gold coins.

What we used:
Red A4 paper
Glue
Gold and red glitter glue
Examples of angpow packets and Chinese symbols
(Any red and gold patterned paper would also look good on these packets).
Chocolate gold coins

Counting Angpow

I'm always looking to present maths to my sons in fun and interesting ways.  (I loathed the subject as a child!).  In these activities I used their fascination with money and their anticipation of receiving their angpow this Chinese New Year to encourage them to practise counting, adding and subtracting.

The first version of this activity was made for Dooey (2.7 years).  I gathered together 5 angpow packets and fixed 5 post stick notes to the back with numbers on them.  I did the same to the front of the packets, but instead of writing the numbers, I made dots to correspond to the numbers on the back.  Then I flipped them over so the numbers were facing him.  For each number he read out, he counted the same in coins and placed them inside the packet.  Once he was finished, he flipped over the packet and emptied it, comparing the number of coins he placed in the packet with the number of dots on the front.  (The post sticks notes with dots worked as a control of error).

The second version of this activity was made for Wugs (4.3 years).  Instead of writing numbers on the back of the packets, I wrote sums which corresponded to the answers on the front of the packet:





This activity combined their love of coins with their love of hiding and rediscovering objects in envelopes.


What we used:
Angpow packets
Post stick notes
Black marker pen
Coins

Lo Hei - Chinese New Year craft

"Lo Hei" or "Yusheng" is a traditional Chinese New Year meal for the Chinese in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.  It consists of a raw fish salad, shredded vegetables and condiments with each ingredient symbolising some aspect of good fortune for the year ahead.    The meal is served on a dish and is tossed in the air using chopsticks with the idea that the higher it is tossed the greater will be the group's fortune in the year ahead.

I thought it would be fun for the children to create a "Lo Hei" dish using various craft supplies I had around the house.  Getting the children to cut up the "ingredients" is a fun way to strengthen their fine motor skills, especially if they are going through a phase of wanting to cut everything!

I gave my son a plastic plate, some glue, a paintbrush and a large plate of the "ingredients".  He brushed the glue on the base of the plate and gradually added the "food", adding glue to different levels of the dish so it would hold together. The more glue that is added to this craft, the more realistic it looks.  The inspiration for this idea came from  CBeebies Mister Maker who has made some amazing food crafts and has a clever technique for gluing spaghetti that could be applied to noodles.  Once his dish had dried, and the chopsticks added we could hang it up as a picture.

A fun extension to this activity would be to see if the children can toss the ingredients using chopsticks.

What we used:

String

Yellow wool

Red crepe paper

Orange foam paper

Green tissue paper and foam paper

Wooden chopsticks

Chinese New Year Lion Sock Puppets

A couple of weeks ago I had the idea to create some sock puppets for the boys for Chinese New Year. As with most of my ideas that involve sewing, I design the project and pass it into the capable hands of my mum.  These adorable lions were based on the fluffy lion costume that is worn by dancers who act out the lion dance – a dance that is performed throughout Singapore and Malaysia at this time of year. We have been playing with them alongside reading this book about the lion dance.  You can read a review of this book from my post on South-East Asian Children's Picture Books:

I drew out the shapes on an A4 sheet of paper and used the shapes as templates for the different features of the lion.  The top three images are the parts of the eyes, the fourth image is the teeth and tongue and the fifth image is the ears.  For the ears, I doubled over the felt to make them stronger so they would stand up.  The nose was a yellow pom pom securely sewn on.  We had a few limitations in putting the sock puppets together as Dooey puts everything in his mouth (so googly eyes, glue or small parts of any kind couldn’t be used). 

All the felt pieces were sewn onto the sock and then strips of the yellow fluffy material were sewn around the edges of the eyes, ears and upper part of the mouth.  The material was very fluffy so I trimmed it down so it different overwhelm the lion's other facial features.  We also added 3 strips of braid that hung down under the mouth of the lions for a mane.  (In the lion dance costume, the mane is very subtle and strands of wool may have been closer to the original design.  We didn't use wool as they could easily become tangled in the hands of my young boys). 

What we used:

A pair of red socks

Black, white, red, orange and green felt

Yellow fluffy material (bought from Hobbycraft, 1 metre for two socks was just enough)

Different-coloured cotton (to match the colours of the felt)

Yellow pom pom

Golden braid

Chinese New Year Small World Play

One of the joys of belonging to a mixed race family is you get to celebrate everything!  Chinese New Year is a welcomed festivity in our home.  It's celebrated about a month after Christmas, during what I used to call "the depressing months of winter" when I lived in the UK.  At this time of year, the shopping malls are decked in reds, pinks and golds and little red "angpow" packets (of money) are distributed to the younger members of the family.

This year I wanted to introduce Wugs to the story behind the celebration.  It seems there are many variations of it, so I went with the one that I could get my hands on in picture-book format.  "The Great Race, The Story of the Chinese Zodiac", by Dawn Casey tells the story of the Jade Emperor using a race across a river to determine the order and names of the calendar months. The book (like all Barefoot Books) is well-written with beautiful vibrant illustrations.  After reading this book almost every night for the last two weeks, I created a Chinese New Year small world play.

Part of the small world play involved a number-matching game which I made using stickers with numbers 1-12 written on them and I placed them on the base of each animal according to the order in which they came in the race.  Then I created some foam circles and placed them on the opposite side of the river for Wugs to match the animals with.  (He could check underneath the animals if he couldn't remember from the story).

Outside the tub I added a treat which I placed in the red angpow packet.  The treat was 3 crispy almond wafers, called "Love Letters" which are rolled in the shape of a scroll.  They are delicious and very popular at this time of year.

What we used:
Green and brown playdough
Dyed blue rice
Wooden peg doll (for the Jade Emperor)
Green, red and black felt (for the Jade Emperor's clothing)
Black thread
Coloured felt-tip pens
White foam paper
Black marker pen
Small plastic animal figurines (Safari Ltd)
Plastic flowers
Angpow packet
"Love Letters"
Scoops