Chinese Lanterns

Our second week of Songs and Rhymes and the aim was to introduce a new one. Well, its actually quite an old one, but new to me and certainly to the children. Quite handily, it tied in with Chinese New Year. So, the craft just had to be... 'Chinese' lanterns!!

The finished article

I can't claim any credit fro the idea, we used a printable from Twinkle, a UK based teacher's resource site. It's full of great ideas. You have to register to use it. Some ideas are available for free, but for others you have to pay a subscription fee.

Incidentally, the song we decided to use alongside this activity was called, 'My ship sailed from China.' It has some great actions, so if children don't know the words, they can always join in with the actions. If you'd like to learn them, this clip from You Tube is quite handy.

Equipment:

• Paper cups 

• Pipe cleaners

• Stickers

• Paper strips

• PVA glue & glue spreaders

• Scissors with sharp points

Preparation:

1. Make two small holes in the top of each cup. I used the sharp points of scissors to do this.

2. Cut thin paper strips.

Method:

1. Show children how to thread both ends of a pipe cleaner through the two holes in the top of the cup. 

2. Look inside the cup and pull both ends of the pipe cleaner towards you and twist the ends together. 

3. Pull the loop at the top of the cup. The twisted ends should prevent the pipe cleaner from coming all the way back out.

4. Embellish the lantern with stickers of your choice.

5. Spread a line of PVA glue around the inside rim of the cup. Stick one end of the paper strips to the line of glue, to make a tasseled edge to your lantern.

6. If you, can, hang to dry.

Work in progress