We love an excuse to get crafty over here. And what better reason than to help celebrate Chinese New Year with this cute and clever kids craft.
2023 marks the year of the Rabbit. Here’s a few fun facts that you may or may not know about Chinese New Year
Did you Know?
- Chinese New Year officially begins on Sunday 22nd January 2023
- The festival marks the transition of zodiac signs
- The celebrations last for a total of 16 days
- On the last day, the celebrations culminate with a spectacular lantern festival and fireworks display
- In Chinese culture, rabbits represent the moon
- People born in the year of the rabbit tend to be peaceful and polite, with an easygoing nature
- During this holiday, it is traditional to eat dumplings for every meal
- Children receive lucky red envelopes that contain money
Why not join in with the celebrations and recruit little ones to get busy and help make this super simple and effective Rabbit Shadow Puppet. Unleash your creative side with this fun activity - perfect to enjoy together during messy play.
Ready, steady, Craft.
You will need:
- Scissors
- Thick black paper or card
- Wooden dowel or lollipop stick
- Coloured card, glitter, mini pom poms etc. to decorate
- Glue
- Sellotape
- Pencil
- Torch
How to Make
- Take a piece of black paper or card and using a pencil, trace a rabbit shape using our handy cut out template design, provided below.
Tip: This is a great activity for little learners to practise their fine motor skills.
- Next, take the scissors and cut out the rabbit shape from the black card. Older children may want to have a go at cutting using child safe scissors - make sure they are fully supervised at all times. For younger children, this is definitely an adult only job.
- Take a wooden dowel or lollipop stick and position it in the middle of one side of the rabbit shape (it doesn’t matter which one). Then secure in place using strips of sellotape. You should now have a handle to hold your rabbit puppet with, like so…
- Finally the really fun part. Take your glitter, pom poms, coloured paper (cut into shapes and patterns) and let the kids go wild as they stick and decorate their puppet to their heart's content. The more colourful the better if you ask us.
- Your shadow puppet is ready to wow. Shine a torch in a dark room and hold up your puppet to see it make a shadow on the wall - magic!
For more fun kids crafting ideas, be sure to head on over to Journal, our curated lifestyle blog. And, don't forget to sign up to our newsletter to stay in the loop on the latest news, offers and all of our favourite things.
You can shop our full collection of toys, gifts and decor online - we have lots of rabbit and bunny themed pieces too - hop to it!
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