Chinese New Year dragon blower

Last year I found a really cute Chinese New Year's dragon craft, and tried it out with the kiddos.  I found it via Pinterest.com, at two different sites: http://blog.kangarooboo.com/2011/01/ and http://babyccinokids.com/blog/2012/02/14/fire-breathing-dragons/. The children really enjoyed it, and got quite a fine motor workout making their dragon!  As a bonus feature, blowing through the dragons is a deep breathing and calming activity - something most teachers of  3 - 5 years olds will welcome!

This project was completed over a couple of days, as we had to paint the cardboard tubes and then let them dry completely before decorating them.

 I helped hold the rolls still while the children put on two large spots of glue at one end, added pompoms, and then clipped a peg on to hold them in place while they dried.  We added wiggly eyes very carefully!

 Clothes pins provide a great finger workout for little hands!  We repeated the process on the other end of the tube (minus the wiggly eyes), to make large "nostrils" for our dragons.

 We taped some tissue paper streamers inside the mouth end, and let them dry.  It's so hard to wait!

The next morning we were able to enjoy our dragons!  We discovered through trial and error that when the children put the tube right up against their mouths, the tissue paper didn't move much, but look at it go when we pursed our lips and blew from a short distance back!

 I think these dragons will scare off any evil spirits that may be lurking around! 

 I will admit, this was not the children's favorite activity for Chinese New Year.  I bought some special red envelopes, and followed the Chinese new year tradition of giving money.   I only put a quarter in each envelope, and the children had to tell me "Gung Hay Fat Choy," which means Happy New Year, in order to collect their envelopes.  Would you believe, they all really liked that best?!   They also liked the ginger chicken stir fry and rice that we had with lunch... and the fortune cookies.  (They're smart kids!)

For those of you who are working on sight word reading, and want a fun reading activity for Chinese New Year, here's a link to a fun activity I created recently.  I hope you like it!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!  Happy Chinese New Year!