Tết activities and coloring pages for Vietnamese American kids

Tết activities that work for young kids come straight from what Vietnamese families do to get ready for the new year: wrapping bánh chưng, putting out peach or yellow apricot blossoms, giving children red envelopes, and saying goodbye to Ông Táo, the Kitchen God. Below are activities and coloring page ideas built on those traditions, picture books with Vietnamese American kids at the center, and a way to find a community Tết festival near you. The traditions are sourced from the Library of Congress and from Tết in Seattle, a Vietnamese community organization.

Families keep Tết in many ways, shaped by region, faith and how long they have been in the United States. Ask the grandparents in your family what Tết looked like when they were small, and draw their version.

What Tết is, in a few sentences for kids

The Library of Congress explains that the Vietnamese Lunar New Year is called Tết Nguyên Đán, usually shortened to Tết, and that it is the most important celebration of the year. It is a time to gather with family and to remember ancestors, and some families visit and clear ancestral gravesites in the days before the new year.

For a preschooler: "Tết is the Vietnamese new year. We clean, cook, put out flowers, wear new clothes, visit family, and remember the people who came before us."

Tết traditions kids can join

All of these are described in the same Library of Congress post, which draws on books in its Asian Reading Room and an oral history with a Vietnamese American:

• Red envelopes. Children receive new year money in lucky red envelopes. Kids can color and decorate an envelope for a grandparent, too, with a drawing inside instead of money.
• Ông Táo, the Kitchen God. He is believed to spend the year with the family and return to heaven just before Tết to report on the family to the Jade Emperor, so families make offerings and prayers at the family altar. Kids love this story because it asks a good question: what would the Kitchen God say about our house this year?
• The cây nêu. A new year tree made of a tall bamboo pole with decorations hung from the top. A paper version on the wall, with kids' drawings hung from it, is a nice preschool project.
• Blossoms. Peach or yellow apricot blossoms are often used to decorate for Tết. Paper blossoms on a real branch, or pink and yellow tissue paper balls glued onto a drawn branch, are easy for small hands.
• Bánh chưng. Sticky rice wrapped in leaves, which may have pork and other ingredients inside, and which may be shaped as a square or a cylinder depending on the region of Vietnam. Kids can help wash leaves or hand over ingredients, and toddlers can "wrap" a square of green paper around a cardboard block.

Tết coloring page ideas

Page	What to draw	Good for
Red envelope	A rectangle with a flap and a simple flower or star on the front	Toddlers, and making real envelopes
Blossom branch	One long branch with round five-petal flowers to color pink or yellow	Fine practice for 3- and 4-year-olds
Bánh chưng	A square parcel with a crisscross of string, or a long cylinder for families who make that shape	Talking about who cooks it in your family
Ông Táo's trip	A figure riding up to the clouds, with the family waving below	Kids who like stories
The cây nêu	A tall pole with ribbons and small shapes hanging from the top	Adding their own decorations
Our family at Tết	Your family in new clothes, visiting grandparents	The page they keep

When you finish a drawing, trace over it in black marker and photocopy it so siblings and cousins each get one. Our guide to how to print coloring pages covers getting dark lines from a phone photo.

Vietnamese American picture books for young kids

We left out Drawn Together by Minh Lê, which is already in our grandparents book list. All of these are in the Seattle Public Library catalog:

Book	Author	What it is about
Mai's Áo Dài	Thái Nguyễn and Monique Truong, illustrated by Dung Ho	On the morning of Tết, Mai wants to wear a Cinderella dress to her Bà Nội's party, until she hears the story of her grandmother's áo dài
Golden Blooms	Y. T. Tran	A picture book describing the traditions of Tết, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year
The Magic of Tết	Windy Pham	A Vietnamese poem and an English story about Tết foods, family activities and celebrations
What's in a Dumpling, Grandma?	Linda Meeker	Grey and his cousin Mila learn to make bánh lọc, Vietnamese dumplings, from their grandmother
A Different Pond	Bao Phi	Bao and his father fish before dawn on a pond in Minneapolis while his father talks about a different pond in Vietnam
Our Lunar New Year	Yobe Qiu	Five children, including a Vietnamese child, celebrate the new year in their own ways

Mai's Áo Dài is the strongest Tết read-aloud on the list. A Different Pond is not a holiday book, but it is a quiet, good one for a child asking where their family came from.

Find a community Tết festival

Many cities hold free Tết celebrations run by Vietnamese American groups. Tết in Seattle, for example, was formed in 1996 by four Vietnamese organizations and runs a free festival at Seattle Center that presents the arts, music, performances and foods of Vietnam with hands-on experiences. Its FAQ says the festival needs no ticket and lists several lion dances across both days. Check with a Vietnamese community center, temple, church or your local library for events near you.

For the ideas shared with other Lunar New Year traditions, see our Lunar New Year coloring pages. Vietnamese families also celebrate Tết Trung Thu, the children's lantern festival, which has its own page in our Mid-Autumn Festival coloring pages.

A page with your own family in it

The page a child holds onto is the one with their own family: Bà Nội at the stove, the kids in new clothes, everyone lined up for red envelopes. Trace a photo from last year, or draw simple figures and let your child color the áo dài.

Colorkin can make a coloring page of your family from a photo, drafted with AI illustration tools and checked and finished by a person. We are making two Vietnamese American coloring storybooks, one about a phở morning with Bà Nội and one about the Trung Thu moon festival. They are not on sale yet, but the free sample shows what a page of your own family looks like.

More holidays and heritage books are in our family and heritage guides.

Questions parents ask