With Chinese New Year here, this is a wonderful, exciting dragon that you can make for this year of the rabbit. Have fun with your children as you share this fun idea for Chinese New Year.
The Chinese New Year is a great opportunity to show off your creative side. The decorations and food of a traditional Chinese New Year are flamboyant, dramatic, and great fun for the family to make together.This Fire-Breathing Dragon is as fun to make as it is to look at!
Materials Needed:
- 2 (18 ounce) and 2 (36 ounce) empty round oatmeal boxes
- 1 sheet of poster board
- 2 yards of cream-colored self-adhesive paper
- Bright green fluorescent spray paint
- 1 yard wide yellow rickrack
- 2 large wiggly eyes or black buttons
- 2 large orange pompoms
- 1/4 yard dark red felt
- 1 1/2-inch wide dark green plastic tape
- Scissors
- Glue gun
- Glue sticks
- Custard cup
- Dry ice
Remove lids from the oatmeal boxes. Cut two dragon wings from the poster board, leaving at least a 1-inch flap to attach them to the dragon.
Spray-paint the wings, the bottoms of all the boxes, and the self-adhesive paper with green paint. The paint does not have to be smooth — splotches of light and dark green give a nice dragon effect. When dry, cover the boxes with painted paper.
Cut a mouth from the closed end of one of the large boxes by cutting two triangles from the sides, 3 inches wide by 5 inches deep, to form the sides of the dragon’s mouth, with a connecting opening across the closed end of the box. Leave the opening big enough to insert the custard cup.
Glue rickrack around the mouth for teeth. Glue eyes onto the orange pompoms, and then glue on top of the head. Cut two teardrop-shaped nostrils and a forked tongue from the felt. Glue the nostrils above the mouth and glue the tongue in the open mouth so that it hangs over the lower jaw.
Attach the wings to the back of the head with green plastic tape.
To make the body, tape the open ends of the two large boxes together. Tape the head to one end of the body, and tape the open end of the other small box to the other end of the body. Glue a triangle of felt on the closed end of the last box for the tail. Cut circles from red felt and glue them on the body of the dragon for freckles.
Put some pieces of dry ice in a custard cup and place the cup inside the mouth of the dragon. As your party begins, pour hot water over the ice — the hotter the water, the greater the steam. The water will gradually freeze around the dry ice. Remove the cup and run hot water over it periodically to melt the ice from around the dry ice.
This process will create more steam. The cup will hold enough dry ice to breathe fire for three to five minutes.
HANDLING DRY ICE
To find dry ice, look in the Yellow Pages of your phone book under Ice. Dry ice needs to be handled with caution, as its temperature is about 109 degrees Fahrenheit below zero! Don’t allow children to handle dry ice and always use gloves to avoid burning your hands. Use a hammer to break large pieces into smaller ones.
