How To Make A Chinese Dragon Puppet For Chinese New Year

In China, dragons symbolise luck, strength and success. At Chinese New Year, there are big celebrations in towns and cities all over the world, and at these celebrations you can often see a Dragon Dance.

Performers dance under a big dragon puppet, which can be any up to 100 metres long and is decorated in bright colours.

© BBC London

These dragons are really huge - but we've come up with a dragon puppet you can make which won't take up quite so much space!

Here's how to make your own dragon puppet...

© BBC London

You will need:

A piece of red card and a piece of gold card (both about A4 sized)
Scissors
Glue (optional)
Sticky tape
Two drinking straws (not the bendy ones) or garden sticks or disposable chopsticks
Pencil
Crayons and glitter glue for decoration

Take the sheet of red card...

...and fold it lengthways.

Open the card up and use scissors to cut all the way down the fold - you might need a grown-up to help you with this.

You should then have two identical long rectangles of card.

Starting at the short end of one of the rectangles, make a fold about 2cm deep...

...and keep folding backwards and forwards, like a concertina, until the whole rectangle is folded.

Then do the same thing with the other rectangle of red card.

Next, put glue or tape on one short side of one of the pieces of folded card.

Fasten the sticky end of the card onto one short end of the other folded piece - making sure you fasten it so the zigzag of folds looks right.

Take the piece of gold card and draw the head and tail of a dragon on it.

Cut the head and tail out.

Using crayons, glitter or whatever you like, decorate the head and tail.

Using glue or sticky tape, fasten the red card to the back of the dragon's head at one end, and the back of its tail at the other end.

It should look a bit like this when you turn it over.

Using sticky tape, fasten straws to the back of the dragon's head and tail.

There should be about 3cm taped to the card, so you're left with long handles to hold the puppet with.

And here it is - your dragon puppet is ready to dance in celebration of Chinese New Year!

If you make a dragon puppet, we'd love to see a photo, so Get In Touch!