In China, dragons symbolise luck, strength and success. At Chinese New Year, there are big celebrations in towns and cities all over the world, and at these celebrations you can often see a Dragon Dance.

Performers dance under a big dragon puppet, which can be up to 100 metres long and is decorated in bright colours. Follow the instructions to make a mini chinese dragon.

You will need

*A piece of red card and a piece of gold card, both about A4 sized (if you don't have coloured card you can use white card and decorate it yourself.)
*Scissors
*Glue (optional)
*Sticky tape
*Two drinking straws (not the bendy ones) or garden sticks
*Pencil
*Crayons and glitter glue for decoration

Take the sheet of red card and fold it lengthways.

Open the card up and use scissors to cut all the way down the fold - ask a grown-up to help you with this.

You should then have two identical long rectangles of card.

Chinese dragons have long bodies, we will make this part first.

Starting at the short end of one of the rectangles, make a fold about 2cm wide and keep folding backwards and forwards, until the whole rectangle is folded up like a concertina.

Do the same thing with the other rectangle of red card.

Next, put glue or tape on one short side of one of the pieces of folded card.

Fasten the sticky end of the card onto one short end of the other folded piece - making sure you fasten it so the zigzag of folds follow on from one another.

Take the piece of gold card and draw the head and tail of a dragon on it, click here to download a template. Try to fill the whole card. Cut the pieces out, then, using crayons, glitter or whatever you like, decorate the head and tail.

Using glue or sticky tape, fasten the red card to the back of the dragon's head at one end, and the back of its tail at the other end.

Using sticky tape, fasten straws to the back of the dragon's head and tail.

There should be about 3cm taped to the card, so you're left with long handles to hold the puppet with.

Your Dragon is now ready to dance in the Chinese New Year parade!

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