[Nursery/Kindergarten] New Year Craft Ideas: A Collection of Projects You Can Enjoy Even After Making Them
You want to plan New Year’s crafts at a nursery or kindergarten, but you can’t think of ideas that kids will enjoy while incorporating traditional elements… In times like these, decorations and classic toys made from familiar materials are perfect! Here, we introduce New Year-themed craft ideas ranging from lucky charms like akabeko (red cow), kagami mochi, and shimenawa, to playable crafts such as fukuwarai, kendama, and spinning tops.
They all make use of recycled materials like milk cartons, plastic bottles, and paper cups, so why not enjoy preparing for the New Year together with the children? Since the children’s creations are treated as “artworks,” we use the term “seisaku” (制作) in the text.
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[Nursery/Kindergarten] New Year Arts and Crafts Ideas! A Collection of Projects You Can Enjoy Even After Making Them (71–80)
Cute horse! How to draw a unicorn
If you want to make a cute Year of the Horse New Year’s card, how about drawing a unicorn? The illustration introduced here shows a unicorn’s profile from the neck up.
Start by drawing the outline of the face, then the front of the neck; draw the ear, then draw the back of the neck and connect it to the front.
After drawing the nose and mane, add a splendid horn so it’s clearly a unicorn.
For the eye, include long eyelashes to make it look cute.
Although horses are typically brown, since this is a unicorn, try coloring it mainly with purple and pink.
Zebra coloring page
If drawing from scratch is difficult, how about trying coloring pages? There are many coloring illustrations available online for free, so using those makes preparation easy.
Since small illustrations can be hard for children to color, use large ones for the coloring itself, then reduce the finished piece with a color copier and paste it onto the New Year’s card.
I think decorating the blank spaces with stickers would also look lovely.
A horse illustration is fine, but I also recommend using a zebra—something more familiar to children from places like the zoo.
Horse made with torn-paper collage
It’s fun to see small torn pieces come together into a big picture! This is one of the projects we hope children will enjoy making together with teachers or guardians, appropriate to their age.
You’ll need paper or postcards, origami paper in various colors, glue or a tape runner, and a pen for sketching.
For preschool classes, it’s also a good idea to adapt the activity as practice in cutting pieces to a suitable size with scissors.
If the pieces are made too small, the pasting step can become difficult, so proceed with care as you work toward the finished piece!
Fluffy giant kagami mochi!
Let’s brighten up your January wall display with a fluffy kagami mochi! You’ll make a kagami mochi, mandarin orange, sanpō tray, urajiro fern, shihōbeni (red-bordered paper), gohei (ceremonial paper), and a ribbon.
For the kagami mochi, stack several sheets of flower paper, accordion-fold them, tie the center with string, then fluff out each sheet one by one.
For the other parts, cut the shapes from colored construction paper or kraft paper and glue them together.
For the sanpō, it’s recommended to crumple the kraft paper once to add wrinkles for texture.
Along with the kagami mochi, adding origami flowers and the zodiac animal will make your wall display even more charming!
Fun New Year’s crafts for childcare: how to make them
These are perfect crafts for an auspicious New Year.
The wobbly daruma made with a paper plate uses familiar recycled materials, so even very young children can enjoy making it.
For the eyes, round stickers could work well.
For the kadomatsu made with a milk carton and toilet paper rolls, adjust the lengths of the “bamboo” pieces and use accordion-folded origami to finish the overall look in a balanced way.
It’s also good finger dexterity practice.
For the shimenawa, carefully teach the children the order of bundling and braiding so it has a nice, full volume.
Enjoy making these while experiencing Japanese culture.
