[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 Craft Ideas! A Collection of Projects You Can Enjoy Even After Making Them (11–20)
Pop-up! Shishimai Lion Dance Toy
The lion dance popping out of a paper cup is so cute! Let’s get started by preparing a paper cup, chopsticks, yarn, vinyl (plastic) tape, construction paper, double-sided tape, and scissors.
Poke a hole in the bottom of the paper cup big enough for a chopstick to pass through.
Cut a plastic bag to fit the mouth of the cup and tape it around the rim of the cup.
Reinforce it from above with vinyl tape, push the tip of the chopstick through and secure it with tape, then make the lion dance face out of colored construction paper and attach it.
Wrap the entire paper cup with construction paper, and you’re done.
This is a craft that even little kids can enjoy for New Year’s, so give it a try!
Oden that can also become a wall!
Here’s a craft project for making oden that even toddlers can do, and it can also be used for wall displays! First, let’s make the oden shop.
Cut colored construction paper into a face shape, then draw or glue on the oden shopkeeper’s facial features.
For very young children, prepare the face parts in advance.
Apply glue to the head area and stick on yarn hair piece by piece.
It’ll be fun to have yarn in various colors.
Next, let’s make the oden ingredients.
Stamp the konnyaku pattern using a cotton swab, make lots of your favorite ingredients, and then glue them onto colored construction paper of your choice to finish!
lion dance
The shishimai lion dance is said to ward off bad luck by “biting,” but many children find it scary because of how it looks.
A lion dance made from a tissue box or other boxes is easy to create, and it’s great because kids can design the face however they like.
If they make them together with friends at daycare or kindergarten and then show them to each other, they can keep enjoying them even after they’re finished.
They can also pretend to chomp on each other to “bite away” bad luck.
It’s a perfect craft for the start of the year, so give it a try!
roly-poly doll
How about making a lucky Daruma for a New Year’s craft? Using a paper plate, you can create a wobbling roly-poly Daruma that’s fun to play with.
To make it, fold a paper plate in half, then attach the Daruma body and face—cut out from colored construction paper—onto the plate.
Draw the face with crayons, and decorate with origami paper or stickers.
For a creative twist, try coloring the construction paper with crayons or paint before cutting out the Daruma to give it a unique look.
Feel free to adjust the steps to suit the children’s ages!
Colorful spinning tops
Let’s make colorful, vibrant New Year-style spinning tops using paper plates and origami.
Use a paper plate cut in half as the body of the top.
First, color the paper plate with your favorite colors using crayons or colored pencils.
Then, paste small torn pieces of origami paper on top to create mosaic-like patterns on the top.
You can use plain origami, patterned origami, or chiyogami to give it a festive New Year’s look.
Finally, attach the axle part made from colored construction paper, and it’s complete.
