Chinese Lanterns

2nd grade

1st Grade

We did this project as part of a lesson on Chinese New Year, which is coming up. I taught them some Chinese and then showed them some Chinese characters that they could draw on their lanterns. For the first graders, I passed out 81/2"x11" white sheets of paper that I had copied off with the cut-out lines on them. I then had them decorate the back of the paper for about ten minutes. Then I showed them how to cut. First, I had them cut off a 1" strip from one of the shorter ends of their paper. Then they folded the paper in half so it was a skinny rectangle. Then I had them hold it with the open side up. There was a line going across the paper about 1" from the top. This was their "stop" line. They then began cutting straight up from the fold crease on the bottom and stopping at the "stop" line. They make little cuts like this all the way across. I then had them bring up their papers to me and I unfolded them and then folded it in the opposite direction on the same fold line. I then taped the two skinny end together and taped the strip across the top to create a handle. For the second graders, I had them do the same thing, but without the drawn-on paper. We used big sheets of colored construction paper instead that were cut into long half sheets. This made their lanterns much more round and puffed out. Here are some better instructions, because I know mine were confusing



This is the template I copied off for the 1st graders to follow