DLTK's Holiday Activities
Chinese Dragon TP Roll Craft

This is a simple craft to do for Chinese New Year or as a generic dragon craft. 

The folded paper strips between the tp-roll halves means that the dragon craft can move around as if it is dancing!

The Chinese Dragon Dance is a traditional dance that involve people dressing up in costumes to make full sized "puppets".  Martial arts moves, bells and drums accompany the dances. 

The traditional dragon costume is made by many performers.  In the picture below you can see the performers hanging onto the poles and moving the dragon. 

Materials:

• cardboard tp roll,
• paper,
• printer,
• scissors,
• glue,
• tape.
• optional:  red and orange construction paper (we have included a paper strip template for the folded section, but I used colored paper so that the color showed even when the paper is folded).

Instructions:

• Print out the templates (color the pieces if you are using the B&W templates) and cut out the pieces.
• Glue the large red rectangle around the tp roll.
• Now cut the tp roll in half; one half will be the head of the dragon and one half will be the tail of the dragon.
• Assemble the head of the tp roll dragon:
  • Glue the snout/nose of the dragon over one of the openings of the tp roll (this will be the front of the dragon head).
  • Fold the the tab of the eyes and glue the tabs to the tp roll so that the eyes appear to pop out of the dragon's head.
  • Glue the dragon's "mane" to the back of the dragons head, folding the tabs under the edge of the tp roll to create a 3D effect.
• Assemble the tail of the tp roll dragon:
  • Cut the dotted line along each of the rectangles to create a fringe type effect.
  • Curl each individual strand around a pencil.
  • Glue the curly rectangles around the tp roll. There should be 3 rectangles to glue, and I chose to glue them from lightest color to darkest color to create a neat fire effect!
• Assemble the middle section of the dragon:
  • Cut out a few strips of paper from orange paper and from red paper, about 3-4cm in width.
  • Tape the strips together at the ends to create one really long strip. (The more strips you use the longer the middle section of the dragon will be—I used 4 strips for each color)
  • Glue the strips together at a 90° angle. Leave about an inch length of each color off the end to glue onto the tp roll later.
  • Fold the bottom strip over the top strip (keeping the 90° angle). Repeat with the other colour. Continue this folding pattern until you almost run out of paper.
  • Glue the last fold together but make sure to leave about an inch of paper strip loose on each side again (to attach the the other tp roll).
• Using some glue and tap attach the middle section to the head and the tail of the dragon. (This part is a bit tricky so may require some help from an adult).
• OPTIONAL: Attach a popsicle stick to each of the tp roll halves (you can glue them to the closest folds) so that you can use the craft as a dancing puppet.

Craft Templates:

• Close template window when done printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Template (Head)       color   or    B&W

Template (Tail)       color   or    B&W

Template (Middle)       Paper Strips

Printable version of these instructions