Dragons are synonymous with Chinese New Year, appearing on decorations, celebrations, and even red envelopes! To get ready for the new year, I made a dragon with my boys as a festive decoration for our house.
The dragon symbolizes strength, wisdom, and the unification of a nation. One theory of the mythical dragon's origin is that totems representing different tribes were merged when the tribes united. This is a popular theory because it shows the strength behind different groups of people coming together as a group and a theory that I believe is a good story for our children to learn.
To decorate our home, I enlisted the help of my three year old twin boys and their love for putting their mark onto everything. I felt it was only fitting that our family got together to create this Chinese New Year Dragon, since the whole idea behind the origin of the dragon was combining forces. I think this would be a great classroom project too! Imagine all the students working together to create the longest, strongest dragon, representing their class.
Before the boys were introduced to the project, I prepared the body of the dragon by stamping out the shape with my own prints on a long roll of paper.
This gave my boys a guideline to where their prints should land. Otherwise, disaster.
While the base layer dried, I set up the orange and red paint, suited up the boys, covered every inch of furniture with newspaper, and let my boys loose with their interpretation of how the scales should look on the dragon.
Needless to say, we went straight to the kitchen sink to wash off as soon as they were done.
Here is what the body looked like after the boys were done.
As the body was drying, I cut out the rest of the parts of the dragon. I got the head, arms, and claws from my clipart set, but you can draw, paint, or cut out your own.
I cut out the body, attached the head, arms, and claws, and we were done! My boys had a blast helping me make this dragon and they love seeing it on display in our house, proudly telling everyone they made it. Try this activity with your children or your students! If finger paints are too much to handle with a large group, another idea is to have them cut out the shape of their hands and layer them together to create the look of scales to make the body. Have fun crafting, and have a happy Chinese New Year!
