Craft: Chinese New Year Dragon

2024 is the year of the dragon and February 10th brings us the first day of the lunar new year. Those born in the year of the dragon are considered to be lucky, strong and charismatic. Why not celebrate by making a dragon puppet? Tag @boom_magazine_derbyshire in photos of your crafty creations!

You will need:

Coloured paper and card

White paper or card

Feathers

Googly eyes

Two chopsticks or straws

Feathers or tissue paper

Two different sized plates/bowls

Black felt tip

Tape

Glue (a glue gun would be even better for sticking feathers)

Scissors

Instructions:

Make the head and mouth

1. Draw around a bowl onto coloured paper, cut it out and fold it in half.

2. Repeat with a smaller bowl on red paper and stick this inside the first circle for the inside of the mouth.

3. Cut out some zigzag teeth from white paper, leaving a gluing flap at the bottom.

4. Stick these inside the mouth.
   

Make the eyes and nose

1. Draw two arch shapes which will fit googly eyes at the top and leave space to create a gluing flap at the bottom for attaching to the head.

2. Draw and enclosed M shape with space for a gluing flap at the bottom and add two nostrils.

3. Stick google eyes on and add black felt tip circles for nostrils.

4. Cut all these out and stick them to the top of the head.

5. Decorate with feathers or tissue paper.

Make the body

1. Cut strips of paper (about 2cm wide and 20cm long) and glue/tape/staple them together to form a paper chain.

2. Draw a triangle for the tail and stick this to the final paper chain loop

3. Decorate with feathers.

Assemble

1. Attach the head to one end of the paper chain.

2. Securely attach a paper straw or disposable chopstick to the back of the head and the final loop or tail and your dragon puppet is complete!

3. Hopefully your small people will enjoy playing with it as much as our biggest Boom kid did!