Watch the full video below👇

Festival and tradition:

On the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunisolar Chinese calendar, a lantern festival, marks the full moon, and the conclusion to the traditional Lunar New Year festival. In China this festival is often called Shangyuan Festival or Cap Go Meh. Nikita Lai Jing Tse has prepared this beautiful lantern craft and video instruction for your children and classrooms. Enjoy!

Classroom lantern craft & reflective conversations:

Make a lantern with the students and revisit the significance of the Lunar New Year as a time to usher in the Spring, even thought many cities in the Northern Hemisphere may still be experiencing deep winter conditions. Even in a deep freeze there are some signs that Winter is on the way out. Ask the children in your classroom to notice if the days are longer, and how are they able to tell? Is the sun rising earlier in the morning? Do they notice that there is more daylight at the end of the school day. Notice how lanterns brighten up the winter nights, making cold, darker days seem festive and special.

Physical skills development:

This craft requires coloring, precision folding, measuring, marking, cutting, pasting

Cognitive skills development:

Understanding measurement, even intervals, technique of folding, thinking ahead to next steps.

Adaptations:

This craft can be adapted to younger children, or children who developmentally have not yet mastered measuring and cutting in a straight line, by suggesting slightly wider interval, or do the pre-cutting with child watching.