Welcome to our blog post on easy paper puppets for Chinese New Year! This fun and interactive activity is a great way to celebrate the holiday while also learning about Chinese culture. Whether you’re reading a Chinese folktale or learning about the customs of the holiday, these paper puppets are a great way to bring the story to life. With just a few simple materials, you and your children can create your own puppet show and play along with the story.
Keep reading to learn how to make these free easy paper puppets and how to use them to enhance your Chinese New Year experience with kids!
These Puppets go with any Chinese New Year themed book:
You can make your own puppets to use with any Chinese New Year books. We use these puppets in conjunction with the books My First Chinese New Year and Would You Rather Be a Princess or a Dragon?
Once your puppets are complete, you can use them to act out scenes from the book or create your own stories. This is a fun and interactive way to learn about Chinese New Year and the traditions and customs associated with it.
My First Chinese New Year by Karen Katz:
The story follows along with a small girl as she prepares to celebrate the Chinese New Year with her family. It discusses her family’s customs and traditions.
This includes the girl getting new clothes and a new haircut and making an alter to honor her ancestors. This simple story gives a warm introduction to the Chinese New Year holiday. Don’t forget to ask questions and mention any kids who celebrate Chinese New Year before you read the book.
Would You Rather Be a Princess Or a Dragon? by Barney Saltzberg
If kids are ever faced with the choice of being a princess or a dragon, the fun rhyming in this book will help them decide the path to select. Princesses enjoy princess things, like pink and bubble baths.
If a child ever has to choose between being a princess or a dragon, the rhyming in this book helps them to decide! Pink and bubble baths are popular among princesses while dragons enjoy being green and dirty.
The symbolism depicts how dragons misbehave while princesses are polite. Kids love the closing twist, in which the princess wants to get a little wild, and “inside every dragon is a little princess waiting to get out.” An entertaining, relatable story for preschoolers and an interesting way to engage with the Chinese New Year puppets.
Play with the Free Chinese New Year Puppets to Build Literacy Skills :
Literacy skills for preschoolers include learning the alphabet, phonemic awareness, and the ability to identify and name familiar words. These skills are important for preschoolers to develop because they create the foundation for future reading, writing, and language abilities.
Literacy skills also help children understand and communicate with the world around them, which is essential for their social and emotional well-being.
Additionally, studies have shown that children who develop good literacy skills at a young age are more likely to succeed in life.
- Repeating stories build literacy comprehension skills.
- Repeating stories build sequencing skills and allows children to make up their own stories.
- When children learn how to make up their own stories and can tell stories in an order that makes sense; they build a foundation for reading.
Read each book by itself at least 3 different times to the class, over one or two weeks.
Now you are ready to start a discussion about the similarities, differences and what are the same with the class.
How to play with the Chinese New Year Puppets to Build Critical Thinking:
Critical thinking skills in preschoolers involve the ability to think independently, make connections, solve problems, and ask questions. These skills are important to develop because they prepare children for success in school and in life.
Critical thinking skills in preschoolers include the ability to establish connections, solve problems and ask questions. These skills are important to develop because they prepare children for success in life.
Preschoolers use critical thinking skills to make sense of the world around them. For example, critical thinking is involved for children to understand cause and effect, such as how the wind can make a leaf fall from a tree. Critical thinking is used to make connections and predictions, which is vital for learning and problem-solving.
Using these puppets along with suggested discussion builds the critical thinking skills that are essential for preschoolers.
- Spotting differences visually with pictures, builds the skills necessary to notice how differences in alphabet letters are formed.
- Spotting differences helps problem solving (critical thinking) skills. Practicing problem solving stimulates brain neurons and brain growth.
- Hold up the books, examining and opening a discussion about the 1st story, then the 2nd.
- Flip through the Princess or a Dragon first page. Enter into a class conversation about the book main features page by page. A girl, A dragon, eating, etc.
- Then flip through the My 1st New Year book and repeat the same procedure.
- Finally, Display the books side by side, and encourage discussion about : same, different, similar.
How Make the Free Chinese New Year Puppets:
- Print the puppets out and have the children cut them out. I printed mine out in black and white so the children could color.
- Have children place stick in desired place on back, and tape with shipping tape.
- Give children books and puppets and encourage them to go into free play with puppets and books and tell their own story.
We talked about how every Chinese New Year is celebrated by different countries and found those countries on our kid-style wall map. We discussed how every year has an animal and talked about what our animal is because of when we are born. Some students enthusiastically related to “their animal”.
Chinese New Year is a time for celebration and tradition, and what better way to introduce young children to the customs of this holiday than with a fun and interactive craft project? I hope your kids enjoyed using this no-prep Chinese New Year-themed puppet as a way to learn about the holiday.
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Free Printable Chinese New Year Preschool Activity download below
