[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)
[Flyer] Spinning Top
![[Flyer] Spinning Top](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5ZbNO0bQKkE/sddefault.jpg)
A toy that has long been loved by children is the spinning top.
These days many kids are absorbed in video games, but New Year’s might be a good time to give them a chance to experience traditional Japanese play.
So let’s make a spinning top using an advertising flyer! To make it, simply fold one flyer lengthwise into a thin strip and wrap it around a shaft made by rolling up another flyer.
You can change the size and colors of the flyers to create your own original top.
Challenge your friends to see whose top spins the longest and enjoy the New Year!
[Ring Play] Kagami mochi
![[Ring Play] Kagami mochi](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wOWpE-sJZZQ/sddefault.jpg)
Kagami mochi, whose name comes from its resemblance to ancient mirrors, has long been a New Year’s decoration offered to deities and Buddhas.
You can create a kagami mochi shape simply by stuffing torn flower paper into a long, narrow plastic bag like an umbrella sleeve, forming it into a ring, and sliding it over a plastic bottle container.
How about letting the one-year-old class enjoy it as a ring-toss activity? It could also be fun to draw that year’s zodiac animal on colored construction paper and stick it onto the remaining space on the plastic bottle container.
karuta (traditional Japanese playing cards)
How about making a handmade karuta set and holding a karuta tournament together? It’s fine even if you don’t have all the syllables of the gojūon, and it’s okay if some cards start with the same letter.
If you prepare simple word cards that instantly evoke an image when read aloud and picture cards that are easy to understand, even children who can’t read hiragana can join in and have fun.
If kids who can write handle the word cards and those who are good at drawing handle the picture cards—dividing roles and creating everything together—then once it’s finished, they’ll be even more absorbed in playing karuta.
Kendama
During the New Year holidays, you feel like trying old-fashioned games, right? A perfect choice for that time is a kendama made with paper cups! Prepare two paper cups and draw your favorite designs on them.
Tape a piece of kite string to the bottom of one cup, then attach the other cup over it, securing them firmly with vinyl tape.
Roll aluminum foil into a ball, wrap it tightly with vinyl tape, and attach it to the end of the string—just like that, your kendama is ready! It’s lighter and easier to handle than a wooden kendama, so kids can enjoy playing with it too.
shimenawa decoration
Shimenawa decorations, which are displayed to welcome the Toshigami deity at New Year’s, have a truly sacred, quintessentially New Year ambiance.
While making them with real rope is difficult, you can roll and braid construction paper in a rope-like color to create them together with children.
Adding shide paper streamers and pine needles made from origami will definitely make them look even more realistic.
Sharing the origins of shimenawa decorations with the children as you craft will make the process even more enjoyable.
This is a craft we highly recommend trying over the New Year.