Lunar New Year Lanterns in Keynote - 2024 Update!

I like to encourage learners to do some digital crafting and primary source sleuthing around Lunar New Year (or any holiday). Using a Library of Congress primary source from the Carol Highsmith Collection, importing into Keynote and adding animation is a fun celebration for the 2023 Lunar New Year Lantern Festival. After adding the photograph to Keynote, masking with a circle Shape isolates a lantern and then Animate/Build out/Scale Big moves it out of the photograph. The “hopping” rabbit is a Keynote Shape, animated with Build in/Bouncy. The finished Keynote can be exported as an Animated Gif or Movie and shared in a digital festival.

Learners can vary this activity by taking their own photos of lanterns in their communities, creating a lantern with shapes in Keynote and/or creating a paper lantern, photographing it and then animating it in Keynote.

This activity can also inspire a deeper dive into the history of cultural holidays. Challenge learners to:

1. Brainstorm questions about the holiday (try Freeform)
2. Categorize questions and form collaboration teams for research and further questions as information grows (try Numbers)
3. Investigate by interviewing classmates, family members or community members who participate in the holiday’s traditions (try Clips, iMovie or GarageBand)
4. Share learning with classmates in a variety of ways, (visual media, podcast, video, slides, gallery walks)

I find that incorporating the inclusion of all holidays celebrated by learners fosters understanding, engagement, learning and joy.

Primary source from the Library of Congress:

• Historic Chinatown in San Francisco, California
• Celebrating Lunar New Year with the Library of Congress’s Collections - Blog post
• Celebrating the Year of the Dragon with Creativity - Miriam Walsh