How to make Chinese lanterns

Two pretty ways to make easy Chinese lanterns: they’re great Chinese New Year crafts for kids and a fun way to work on scissor skills.

 

 

How to make Chinese lanterns

Did you see the red and gold Chinese sensory paintings we made? We used some of them to make our lanterns.    

For the first Chinese lantern design, you need to fold your piece of card in half, lenghtways.

Use a pair of scissors to cut lines along the fold, as shown in the photograph. It’s important to not cut all the way across, as if you do your lantern will fall into pieces.

 

 

You could drawn lines on the card for your child to follow, or they can cut just by using their eyes to guide them. It’s not essential to cut in perfectly straight lines, or to space them out exactly, so encourage your child to have a go with the scissors.

 

 

Then you need to open out your card, and roll your lantern up so that the two shorter sides meet. We fixed ours with sticky tape, but a stapler is good too.

 

 

Add a handle on the top so you can hang up your lantern. We used some gold ric rac, held in place with tape.

 

 

 

The finished lanterns have a great shape and can be strung across the room in chains.

 

 

For the second style of Chinese lanterns, inspired by the pumpkin craft we made for Halloween, we cut one of our pieces of card into 8 strips.

 

 

Again, we don’t need perfection, so encourage your child to use the scissors, giving them drawn lines to cut along if they would like them.

 

 

Then, use a split pin to fix all the strips together at one end.

Splay out the strips as shown in the photograph above.

 

To complete the lantern shape, curl each strip round to create a ball and fix all the loose ends together with a second split pin.

We added some gold ribbon underneath as an extra decoration, and used some gold yarn on the top as a handle. With both lanterns, the more the merrier!

Have the whole family or class join in making them and you can festoon your ceilings with strings of them for a pretty Chinese New Year decoration.

 

 

 

Download your ready-made Chinese New Year Unit

Download your copy of the Play Academy’s ready-made Chinese New Year Unit and you’ll have everything you nee to teach an engaging programme of Chinese New Year activities.

In this Chinese New Year Unit your children can:

:: learn about Chinese New Year: what it is and how it is celebrated

:: learn about the animals of the Chinese zodiac

:: learn about Chinese dragons and make your own dragon puppet

:: make Chinese-style paper lanterns

:: play lucky 8s, count to ten in Chinese and play red envelope math games

:: explore sensory painting

:: try a mandarin sensory taste test

Bonus Chinese New Year thematic unit printables

The Play Academy’s thematic units come with practical printables that make the lessons more engaging for your children and easier for you to teach.

No need to go searching for printables to accompany your lessons, they’re all included when you download your chosen unit.

In this Chinese New Year Unit you’ll receive these bonus printables:

:: a Red Envelope mat for math activities

:: three-part colour-in Chinese Zodiac Animals matching cards

How to download this Chinese New Year thematic unit

You can download this unit along with over 50 more from NurtureStore’s Play Academy.

If you are already of the Play Academy, you can download this unit straight away from our Library here.

If you are not yet a member, find out more and choose your first unit here. Your teaching is about to get a whole lot easier!