Chinese Zodiac Animals

Description of our Chinese Zodiac Animals

Cute Creative Chinese Zodiac Animals made from strips of colorful construction paper. These unique animals were designed by my daughter for the Chinese Lunar Year. The Chinese Zodiac is based on a twelve-year cycle. Each year is represented by one of twelve animals. The 12 animals in order are the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig (Boar). Each Chinese zodiac animal has personality traits assigned to it by the ancient Chinese. I have a chart below where you can see which animal is for each designated year.

Chinese zodiac animals made with construction paper strips.

Materials

Colored construction paper (Blue, red, purple, green, yellow, and orange
Black fine point sharpie
Scissors
Elmer's Glue and clear scotch tape
Paper cutter is the best and easiest to cut lots of strips at one time but scissors, pencil and ruler also work fine. Have an adult cut these ahead of time of the activity. Be sure to keep paper cutters our of kids reach. I tape the blade down with masking tape when stored at home.

Steps

Cut strips into 1"x 8.5"
Decide what colors you will use for each animal.
Look at our examples of each animal or let your child create their own version. My daughter is creating a tutorial for each animal that we will post as soon as it is available. You can find simple pictures of each to help give children ideas for the shape of each animal.
Use Elmer's Glue and tape to hold the pieces together.
Using a fine black sharpie, draw the details when glue has dried

The Zodiac Animals and their Meanings

Below are our samples of each animal and a very simple description of the characteristics each animal represents. There are many detailed description you can find by looking it up.