Printable Dragon Craft for Lunar New Year

Mark the beginning of a new year with our printable dragon puppet! It's easy to customize this craft to suit the ages and abilities of the kids involved.

What You'll Need:

• our Build a Dragon printable (colour PDF or black and white PDF to colour)
• scissors
• tape
• 2 dowel rods per dragon
• feathers
• crepe paper streamers
• construction paper

How It's Made:

1. Print our Build a Dragon printable in colour or in black and white (right click to save and print). 

2. Have kids colour in their dragons, if applicable.

3. Cut out the dragon head and dragon tail.

4. Embellish the head and tail with feathers and crepe paper streamers. We used tape to secure the embellishments.

5. Tape a dowel rod to the back of the dragon's head, and another to the back of the tail.

6. Make the dragon's body. You can make a simple body by cutting a strip of construction paper, and folding it like an accordian:

You can also choose to be a little more elaborate by using two colours to make the body. (Anyone who grew up with dot matrix printers might be familiar with this technique!) Start by cutting three 1-inch wide strips from the length of your construction paper. Tape them together to create a long strip. Do the same with a second colour of construction paper.

Lay the strips on top of each other in a V shape. Fold the bottom strip up over the top. Repeat —bottom over top, bottom over top — until you've folded the entire thing. Secure the ends with tape.

Here's what it will look like:

8. Tape one end of the body to the dragon's head and one to the tail. 

You're done! Enjoy celebrating the Lunar New Year!