Year of the Horse Crafts and Decorations
My little family has been busy decorating and celebrating, welcoming The Year of the Fire Horse. I wanted to take a moment to share some of the crafts and decorations we have recently made. Hope it can help to add a little fun to your family, classroom, and community celebrations as well!
These files are best printed out onto regular paper and used as a template to cut out onto colored construction paper or cardstock. If you don’t have construction paper, regular white printer paper will work just fine. Your kids can color in their horses using crayons, markers, or oil pastels. You could also print out the template onto mixed media paper for your kids to paint.
When making these lanterns, simply print out the paper lantern cut template above, fold in half, and use as a template to cut onto construction paper or cardstock. We also used 12X12 pieces of cardstock to create some larger lanterns. This is a great activity for kids to work on scissor practice. My older kids still really enjoy this activity and look forward to making new lanterns every year.
This is what all the pieces look like when they are all cut out.
My daughter drew in eyelashes, glued on extra flowers, and added a little card. She also used one of the horse hoofs to make a mouth. I love seeing how different all the lanterns turn out despite using the same template.
I made a few themed coloring pages to help celebrate. They are available to download above for personal use. I make more coloring pages here.
I cut out some huge horse heads from red poster board and hung up a red plastic tablecloth as the horse mane. This is a really easy and inexpensive way to quickly decorate a large space. My kids painted paper bowls to make large hoa mai flowers which we added to our horse. We also hung them on our Lunar New Year tree.
We keep our white artificial Christmas tree up all year and my kids really enjoy helping me to decorate it for all the holidays. I purchased these beautiful lucky money bags here and inserted some new bills inside to give to guests at our annual Lunar New Year party.
I cut swirls out of craft paper to create branches and taped up more hoa mai flowers that my kids made to help decorate our taller walls.
I used a bunch of paper plates and some poster board to quickly make a lion face. One of our favorite new year traditions is visiting the local buddhist temple on the morning of Lunar New Year to watch their lion dance.
I also made a printable lion mask template that my kids really enjoyed painting with watercolors and wearing. This file is best printed out onto white cardstock for kids to decorate and cut. They can then be hold punched at the sides and tied with elastic string or taped to large craft sticks or wooden dowels.
I pulled out this peg board that I had drawn a unicorn on previously for my daughter’s unicorn birthday. I just hot glued a nón lá (traditional Vietnamese hat) to cover up the unicorn horn and gave kids a bowl of beads to thread on. This is not only very calming but also is a wonderful activity for younger kids in strengthening their fine motor skills.
I pulled out this huge cutout we made years ago for my daughter’s Tangled fifth birthday and added my kids’ bucket of fake snowballs as rice balls for kids to toss. I love finding new ways to reuse what we already have to celebrate.
In our dining room, I cut the shape of Vietnam out of red poster board and created the old Vietnamese flag out of red and yellow poster board, hanging everything up with painter’s tape. I love using the holiday to teach my kids about where their ong ngoai and ba ngoai (vietnamese grandpa and grandma) came from.
I made this simple sign to place by my kids’ globe to invite them and their friends to find Vietnam.
I turned my kids’ play kitchen into a restaurant serving Vietnamese food with the addition of a few signs and simple pretend play food ideas. White yarn from the Dollar Tree became pho noodles, sliced up green pool noodles became servings of banh chung, and rolled up brown felt became egg rolls.
You may also enjoy:
More Lunar New Year Crafts (includes free Happy New Year in Vietnamese banner and paper Hoa Mai cut outs to decorate more lanterns)
Lunar New Year I Spy and Counting Clip Cards
The Best Egg Rolls Ever Recipe
More Horse Crafts and Party Ideas
I create more printable activities for kids here.
If you get a chance to use these horse crafts or decorations, I would love to see it! Please use #sodangfun on social media, tag me @sodangfun on Instagram, or post to my Facebook page.
Wishing you and your family a healthy and happy Year of the Fire Horse!
