Best 20 Chinese New Year Activities and Crafts for Home and School!

Chinese New Year (Lunar New Year) marks the start of the lunar calendar and new Zodiac year.  This is a major holiday in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and other Asian countries.  During this time of year, Chinese New Year activities and crafts are enjoyed by children and their families!

How is Chinese New Year celebrated?

For a fresh start to Chinese New Year, houses are cleaned and decorated with lucky colors, red and gold.   In addition, lanterns and banners have messages of fortune, happiness, wealth, and longevity!

To celebrate Chinese New Year, you can read Chinese New Year books with your family and try the Chinese New Year activities and crafts in this post!

Hands-On Chinese New Year Crafts and Activities for Children

To celebrate Chinese New Year, children of all ages can have fun with engaging Chinese New Year crafts and activities.

Depending on your child’s fine motor skills, some Chinese activities may require help from adults, such as with cutting, gluing, and taping.  This is something to consider if you are thinking about preparing activities for a Chinese New Year celebration at your child’s school.

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1. Montessori-inspired Shelf of Chinese New Year Activities

Happy Tot shelf has an entire shelf of DIY Chinese New Year activities.  Chinese New Year activities include Zodiac animal matching and other fun activities!

Click here to visit to see details of each activity on Happy Tot Shelf!

Chinese New Year Learning Shelf from Happy Tot Shelf

2. Chinese New Year Red Envelope – Free Printable

Red envelopes (also known as red packets) are extremely important for Chinese New Year!

Download the free printable and decorate with glitter glue and rhinestone stickers!  Characters options include 福, 囍, 寿 or 壽, 家, 春, 好, and 恩.  This is a low-prep activity that you can do at your child’s school!

Chinese New Year Red Envelope from CHALK Academy

3. Chinese New Year Craft with Cardboard Chinese Firecrackers

With cardboard tubes and red envelopes, you can make your own lucky Chinese Firecrackers for Chinese New Year!  This is one of many great cultural crafts from Chinese American Family.

Chinese New Year firecrackers craft from Chinese American Family

4. Chinese New Year Banners

Although Chinese New Year banners are typically red and gold, we had some fun with rainbow colors!  You can download the free printable banners in simplified and traditional Chinese from this article.

Chinese New Year Banners from CHALK Academy – free printable in simplified and traditional Chinese

5. Dancing Paper Roll Chinese New Year Dragon Craft

Vibrant dragon craft made from upcycled materials and colored with acrylic paint!  Save all of your toilet paper rolls, because longer dragons = more fortune!  🙂

This is one of the many wonderful ideas from Oh Creative Day!

Paper Roll Chinese Dragon Craft from Oh Creative Day

6. Yin Yang Paper Plate Puzzle

The famous Yin Yang symbol represents harmony and balance in Chinese colors.  This paper plate puzzle is a creative way to learn about yin yang!  It’s a fun activity for Chinese New Year, but you can do it any time of the year!

Yin Yang Paper Plate Puzzle from CHALK Academy

7. Whirling Paper Plate Chinese Dragon for Chinese New Year

Chinese Dragon crafts just got more fun with this bouncy, whirling paper plate dragon craft from Red Ted Art!

Paper Plate Dragon from Red Ted Art

8. Paper Plate Chinese Drum for Chinese New Year

Ring in Lunar New Year with a fun and easy paper plate Chinese Drum craft!  Check out the DIY details at Gift of Curiosity.

Chinese Paper Drum Craft from Gift of Curiosity

9. Chinese water calligraphy for Chinese New Year

Chinese calligraphy is a beautiful and artistic form of writing that is highly respected in Chinese culture.  Your kids can have fun with magic water calligraphy, a reusable and eco-friendly way to practice writing!

You can see how we used the magic writing cloth for Chinese writing practice here.

Water calligraphy on magic water cloth from CHALK Academy

10. Chinese New Year Kids Activity: Mystery Box!

Spot of Sunshine has this creative and interactive mystery box activity that teaches important cultural items and their significance.  This would be a great activity for students in a classroom or at home with your kids!

Learn about the interesting cultural details here!

Chinese New Year Mystery Box from Spot of Sunshine

11. Chinese New Year Craft Stick Puzzle for Kids

Learn the important Chinese New Year Greeting “恭喜发财” with this craft stick puzzle from CHALK Academy!

Chinese New Year Craft Stick Puzzle from CHALK Academy!

12. 3-Dimensional Paper Cutting 春 Craft for Chinese New Year

Miss Panda Chinese has a free printable that you can cut and use to decorate your home for good luck! In Chinese, Lunar New Year marks the start of 春 (Chūn / Spring).  Therefore, Lunar New Year is also known as 春節 | 春节 (Spring Festival) in Chinese.

Click here to visit her resourceful website for the free download!

Chinese Paper Cutting Craft from Miss Panda Chinese

13. Printable Rounded Chinese Lanterns for Chinese New Year

Fortune Cookie Mom, a bilingual homeschooling website, has beautiful lantern printables that you can make with your family!

Click here for the free printable and DIY instructions!

Chinese lantern printable from Fortune Cookie Mom

14. Rainbow Paper Fortune Cookies

Although fortune cookies are not traditional Chinese food, they are a common staple of Western Chinese restaurants and filled with special messages on the inside!  Check out the fortune cookie DIY instructions and video tutorial using colorful printer paper!

15. Chinese Zodiac Wheel – Learn about the 12 animals

To learn the Chinese Zodiac, this interactive wheel shows you which animals correspond to which year.  The printable wheel is available in simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, and English.

Click here to learn more about the printable Chinese Zodiac Wheel!

Chinese Zodiac Wheel from CHALK Academy

16. Printable Chinese Dragon Puppets

DIY just got easier with these free, fun, interactive, dragon puppet printables from Red Ted Art!

Chinese New Year Dragon Puppet Printable from Red Ted Art

17. Movable Chinese New Year Dragon Craft

A fun and and interactive dragon puppet from Crafts on Sea!  You can use the dragon printable from Red Ted Art for this paper plate craft!

Movable Chinese Dragon Paper Plate Craft from Crafts on Sea

18. Chinese Paper Folding Fans

Want to make the easiest Chinese paper fans with your kids?  Click here to learn how to DIY!

DIY Chinese folding fans craft from CHALK Academy

19. Happy New Year coloring sheets in Chinese!

Free printable Happy New Year coloring sheets in simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese!  You can download Chinese coloring sheets here.

Happy Chinese New Year coloring sheets from CHALK Academy

19. Paper Bag Chinese Dragon Puppet

This is a cute DIY Chinese dragon craft made easy with the free printable from Pink Stripey Socks!

Paper Bag Dragon Puppet from Pink Stripey Socks

21. Year of the Pig: 小猪小猪肥嘟嘟 Chinese song lyrics and pig activities!

Since 2019 is the year of the pig, you can learn a cute 小猪小猪肥嘟嘟 song and have fun with pig activities!  Click here for details about the Chinese pig activity!

新年快乐, 恭喜发财!!

Happy New Year! May you have a prosperous new year!

Save these educational Chinese New Year activities and crafts!

This collage of Chinese New Year activities can be pinned to your Pinterest board!  Follow us on Pinterest to see what else we are brainstorming!

Other Chinese New Year resources for children

• Chinese New Year books and audiobooks in Chinese and English
• Chinese New Year YouTube videos in Mandarin Chinese

Also be sure to explore other Chinese learning activities by topic (eg, math, human body, nature, etc) in this link!

Tips on creating a Chinese learning environment at home

• Teach Your Child a Second Language at Home with 5 Key Steps
• Raising Multilingual Children as a Non-Fluent Parent: 7 Lessons Learned
• How To Get Your Child To Speak the Minority Language
• Encourage A Child to Love and Speak the Minority Language with 5 Strategies
• How to Find a Foreign Language Teacher for Your Child
• 5 Reasons Books are the Best Gifts for Multilingual Kids

Teach kids how to read Chinese

• When and How to Introduce Chinese Characters to Kids?
• 15 Ways to Encourage Your Child to Read
• Create a Print-Rich Environment with Labels that Promote Literacy
• How I Taught My Child 1000+ Chinese Characters as a Non-Fluent Speaker
• When Should My Child Learn Hanyu Pinyin?

Happy playful learning, friends!