It's no secret that I'm a fan of Chinese New year, and so are the girls. We've had a great week playing with different 'oriental' ideas, parading around the house, reading books about dragon-dancing and dragon-carved temples and talking about other countries in general. Happy Husband went to China a couple of times last year for business and bought home panda bears, mini chopsticks, china-doll dresses and some other odds-and-ends for the girls. These have all been revisited, and replayed with. Chopsticks are still impossible for tiny hands, but the panda bears are a new love.
To make the oriental fan shown pictured, we used some shiny red paper, covered it with a collage of joss-paper squares, then concertina folded it. I punched holes in the bottom but didn't thread a ribbon through; the girls went off with it before I could finish, playing as Mimi called it "My Fine Lady."
Making a fan is a fun activity for toddlers; the collage can be as complicated as suits their age and patience, and then you simply help them fold it. Fans make great costumes for a party or dress-up games, and if you made enough of them, they'd make fabulous decorations, for the table, or hanging against the walls.
- For a more detailed tutorial on how to make the fan - download the free party craft book for a blue version (it's on page 53).
- To read more about collaging with kids, there's another blog post where the girls made a blue collage poster.
- Lastly - if you haven't already; please join this site and/or facebook for your chance to win a set of personalised silhouette printpapers!
Happy Chinese New Year everyone - let the next 15 days of celebrations begin!
I've got one more 'oriental' post tomorrow where I'll let you know about my attempts to make fortune cookies out of a variety of materials... and then it's back to normal party blogging... with perhaps a couple of nationalistic posts to celebrate Australia Day... but for now; the washing beckons...
