Paper Bag Chinese Dragon Puppet made with Handprints

Almost every year since my now 7 year old was 1, we have celebrated Chinese New Year with our friends. This year, I got a head start on the crafts so I could join up with a group of fabulous bloggers doing a Chinese New Year series on with the Multicultural Kids Blog. Today is our day to post! We are sharing a paper bag Chinese dragon puppet made with handprints. In the past we have made Chinese dragons from handprints, thumbprints, parade puppets, masks, and a printable Red Dragon, Red Dragon What Do You See book. All can be found in this Chinese New Year post.

Supplies needed:

• red paint
• yellow paint or gold glitter paint
• paper lunch bag
• red and yellow construction paper
• pencil
• markers
• scissors
• glue
• something to stamp with - optional

How to make the Handprint Chinese Dragon Puppet:

I thought it would be fun for my preschooler to stamp her dragon puppet instead of using a paintbrush. We used 2 different stamping cubes from our Melissa & Doug clay play set. I placed red paint on a small paper plate for her to dip the stamp in. After she covered her paper bag, I poured gold glitter paint on the plate for her to use with the 2nd stamp. You could also use yellow paint if you didn't have gold or even sprinkle loose gold or red glitter over the red paint. Kids may enjoy using fingerprints or bubble wrap as a stamp or anything else you can find in the home!

I traced her hands to make 4 hand tracings and then cut them out. My daughter is not advanced enough with her scissor skills to cut curves yet, but she will be soon since she loves cutting! I also traced an oval shape on red construction paper. Since Little Sister loves to make things sparkle, she painted the hands using the gold glitter paint as well.

She glued the hands on to the paper bag's bottom. All the thumbs should be facing outwards (the top 2 with the thumbs at the top and the bottom 2 with the thumbs opposite the top thumbs). She glued the red oval on top of the hands. It should be big enough to cover about the same width/height as the bottom of the bag.

I free-handed the face and wish I would have used pencil first. For inspiration, do a quick web search for Chinese dragon or Chinese dragon coloring pages. Decorate the face however you'd like: paint, glitter, markers, sequins, and so on.

Now your Chinese dragon puppet is ready to be played with! Paper bag puppets are so much fun to make and to play with. My daughter has made quite a few already. They're simple, frugal, and the ideas are endless.

This post is part of the Chinese New Year series and giveaway on Multicultural Kid Blogs.  Giveaway begins Jan. 21 and goes through midnight ET on March 5, 2015.  Head on over to the main page to enter PLUS check out all the amazing posts by the other blogs participating in the series. Don't forget to link up your own posts about Chinese New Year!