Tag Archives: creative deign

Chinese Dragons!

With the start of Chinese New Year being yesterday the children wanted to make dragon masks. The dragon is a legendary creature in Chinese mythology. The dragon is a symbol of power, strength and good luck! The children watched some clips of the dragons dancing in the streets and were very impressed with the size and how colourful they are. We had a chat about why the dragon is significant in China.

We had a look at a colourful dragon and got started making our own dragon masks. The children wanted to use lots of coloured tissue paper to look like the ‘dragons hair’. First we had to cut the paper into strips!

We used paper plates for our masks. We added lots of colour using pens. Some children wanted to draw faces and some just drew patterns.

We used glue to stick on lots of coloured paper.  Some children thought it would be good to add coloured feathers to their dragons!

”Mine has a fluffy beard!”

”My dragon has spiky hair with lots of colours in it!”

“I’m making a rainbow dragon!”

”My dragon is loud and dancing!”

Once the children had designed their amazing dragons we stuck lollipop sticks on the back to make masks.

We had great fun dancing around the studio and listening to music pretending to be Chinese Dragons!  I think you will agree the children at Cartmill have been very creative today and enjoyed learning about Chinese culture.

Junk modelling robot

We have been enjoying exploring the junk modelling area since moving in to the Studio room last week. The children discussed what they would like to make and made a plan to make a robot but what would they need, they decided to list all the things they would need.

”We need glue”
”and Cellotape”
“and of course, junk!”

The children used their imagination and problem solving skills to figure out how to make the parts stay together.

“You need to leave the glue to dry so it sticks”


The children worked together as a team making sure they followed their design so that everything was in the right places.

“paint it yellow like a bumble bee”

To finish off they decided to paint it yellow and add some cardboard tubes for arms.

The yellow paint didn’t cover the box as well as we thought, so the children improvised and used yellow tissue paper instead.

We are always looking for cardboard boxes (big and small), bottle lids, cartons, cereal boxes etc. to add to our collection so save your recycling and instead of putting it all in your blue bins, bring it in to us!