As this coming Chinese lunar year is the Year of the Sheep, I will be sharing different types of sheep crafts with you! This is my second craft for sheep and we have used paper plates to make a sheep.
Chinese New Year Ang Pow Sheep
It is the time of the year to start making some Chinese New Year crafts! This year, the first day of Chinese New Year falls on the 19 February 2015 and it will last for 15 days. Last year, I had made quite a few Ang Pow lanterns, taught the children simple ways to learn the Chinese zodiac, did various paper cuttings and also made a 3D Chinese “Spring” character. Click on the title Chinese Culture to look at my previous Chinese New Year crafts.
This coming year is the year of the Sheep. During these next few weeks, I will be sharing different types of sheep crafts with you!
Today, I am showing you how to make a Chinese character sheep 羊 using ang pow (red packet). This is a very simple way to decorate your wall and teach your children Chinese words.
Painting Chinese Lantern
Last week, Lichfield Mandarin Club were celebrating the Mooncake Festival. As I am in charge of the craft side, I decided to ask the children to paint a Chinese lantern. I first saw the Chinese lantern’s display in Chinatown while I was in Singapore last month. So I bought the paper lanterns online and planned on recreating a similar display with our club.
Chinese New Year Paper Cutting Huat Ah / Wang
This is another post for my Chinese New Year series and today it is about craft. Last week, we made 3D Paper Cutting Chinese New Year Spring 春 and today we cut the 旺 (wang in hanyu pinyin) Chinese character. In Singapore during Chinese New Year, you will often hear people say/shout Huat Ah (in Hokkien language) in the street, dinner party or when they want to win the lottery! It means to prosper and be wealthy. So people adapt 旺 into Chinese New Year culture. 旺 is the translation of Huat.
Simple Way to Teach Children Chinese Zodiac
I am bilingual and I would like both my children to learn Chinese, which is their mother tongue, as it will be very useful wherever they go. I am not great at teaching my children Chinese and have to find fun ways to get them to learn. We did this craft with our Lichfield Mandarin Club last year and this has proved to be a very useful way to teach children.
3D Paper Cutting Chinese New Year Spring 春
Lunar New Year is also know as Chinese Spring Festival. It is a quite a long story as to why it is called Spring Festival but the short version is that it is mainly based on mainland Chinese ruling. Spring 春 is widely used on the Chinese New Year theme or Auspicious words on Festival Couplets (New Year’s wishes on pieces of red papers) like:
迎春接福 Yíng chún jiē fú – Greet the New Year and encounter happiness
春回大地 chūn huí dà dì – Spring has come back to the earth
Chinese New Year Ang Bao/Pow Star
We have been busy making Chinese New Year Ang Bao/Pow Star. This is how we made it!
Chinese New Year Fan
Fans are easy to make – it is mainly sticking and pasting or painting. While the kids had a go at making their fans, I also made two proper Chinese New Year Fans.
How to make Chinese New Year Firecracker
If you have been following my Chinese New Year series, you will have seen that I have made a Hello Kitty lantern, Hello Kitty Chinese coin, Fish lantern and Chinese lantern. Today, I made the Chinese New Year Firecracker, Chinese Fan, Chinese New Year Ang Bao/Pow Star with my children.
Hello Kitty Chinese Coin Lantern / Ang Pow
Yesterday, I made a Hello Kitty Lantern and had a few Ang Bao/Pow left to make a Chinese Coin Lantern. If you would like to find out more on Chinese coins, click the link to direct you to Wikipedia. Some Chinese believe that carrying a Chinese coin in your wallet will also help to ward off evil spirits and bring in money. I am not sure how true it is but I do carry one in my wallet! These Chinese Coin Lanterns are much easier to make compared to other lanterns.
Hello Kitty Chinese New Year Ang Bao/Pow Lantern
My two sisters-in-law are big fans of Hello Kitty so when I came across some Hello Kitty Ang Bao/Pow when I was last in Singapore, I bought some for them. I bought some for myself too and with these, I decided to make a lantern.
Fish Lantern using Ang Bao / Pow
During this month, I am going to write a series of Chinese New Year posts from making lanterns, zodiac, Feng Shui to Chinese culture. This is my first blog post of my Chinese New Year series. Look out for the rest of the posts! Today, I am going to use Ang Pow (red packets) to make a Fish Lantern. So what is an Ang Pow? It is a red envelope/packet that contain a monetary gift which is given during Chinese New Year or special occasions like weddings or birthdays etc. They are called Hong Bao (红包) in Mandarin or Ang Pow/Bao in Singapore Hokkien or Lai See in Cantonese. Click here to read more about it.
Chinese New Year Ang Pow Lantern
This is a very simple and straightforward Chinese Lantern. The rating of difficulty is 1 out of 5. This is a very small lantern, which measures approximately 13 cm, not including the length of the Chinese knot tassel and string. It is an such easy craft for children to do and won’t take more than 15 minutes to do. It will make a great Chinese New Year theme craft for younger children. You can also make more than one lantern and join them all in a vertical roll or horizontally as a banner.
Chinese New Year Mini Ang Pow Lantern
I was asked by our Lichfield Mandarin Club to teach our members to make a Chinese New Year mini ang pow lantern. So I decided to blog the step by step instructions. The difficulty rating is 1 out of 5. You can also make more than one lantern and decorate them like how you decorate your Christmas tree.
