Mid-Autumn Festival has always been the Vietnamese celebration where children shine—carrying lanterns through the night, tasting sweet mooncakes, hearing stories about the moon. Here are six Mid-Autumn Festival activities that transform Vietnamese traditions into hands-on experiences kids can try at home, where they don’t just observe—they participate, create, and connect.
Bringing Vietnamese Traditions to Life Through Creative Play
These activities do more than teach about Mid-Autumn Festival—they invite children into the experience. Whether decorating lanterns from milk jugs, rating different mooncakes, or helping arrange a family altar, each craft connects children to Vietnamese traditions while building memories that last long after the celebration ends.
There’s something transformative about watching kids engage with traditions hands-on. When they’re doing rather than just observing—painting moon phases that glow in the dark, acting out legends with story cards, carrying lanterns they decorated themselves—the traditions become theirs.
What Makes These Activities Work
Little Banh Boo creates printables and activities designed around how children actually learn and engage:
Cultural Connection – Each activity teaches Vietnamese traditions through engaging, hands-on experiences rather than just words or passive observation.
Family Bonding – These crafts bring generations together, creating natural opportunities for storytelling and sharing cultural knowledge.
Accessible for Everyone – Designed for busy families, teachers, and caregivers with simple materials and clear instructions that work for different ages and skill levels.
Building Traditions – These activities help create meaningful Mid-Autumn Festival experiences, whether reconnecting with heritage or discovering Vietnamese traditions for the first time.
Creating Joy – Most importantly, these crafts focus on fun and creativity, making cultural learning feel like play rather than work.
The goal isn’t perfection—it’s connection, creativity, and celebrating together.
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Activity 1: Storytelling with the Moon Legends
The Tradition: Mid-Autumn Festival centers on three legends: Hằng Nga (the Lady of the Moon who chose love over immortality), Thỏ Trắng (the White Rabbit who offered himself to help strangers), and Chú Cuội (Uncle Cuội whose kindness earned him a magical tree). These stories teach values like sacrifice, generosity, and compassion.
Why It Matters: When kids can hold story cards, act out scenes, or use characters as props, folklore becomes something they can explore rather than just memorize. The stories stick because they’ve interacted with them.
Ways to Share These Stories:
Option 1: Children’s Books
Here are some wonderful bilingual books that are perfect for multigenerational households, allowing family members who speak different languages to participate together in sharing these legends:
- Bringing in the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival: Rhyming Poems by Kimly Hoang-Nakata
- Where is the Moon? Trăng ơi, trăng đâu rồi? by Windy Pham
- Celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival with the Zodiac Animals by Jessie Duong
- Sự tích chú Cuội The Legend of Cuoi, the Man on the Moon by Tiny Wrist
Check your local library or purchase through bookstores or Amazon.
Option 2: Story Cards as Interactive Props
Story cards can become menu place settings (sparking dinner conversation), goodie bag inserts (so kids take stories home), or classroom teaching tools for teachers and community groups. They’re conversation starters, not just decorations.
Option 3: Oral Tradition
Ask family members to share the stories as they remember them. Each person’s version adds something unique.
Little Banh Boo offers printable story cards with different sized versions for learning, party decor, and goody bag, and engagement ideas (available on Etsy)
Activity 2: DIY Lanterns
The Tradition: Lantern parades are the heart of Mid-Autumn Festival. Traditionally, children carry lanterns through the streets, their lights representing hope and togetherness under the full moon.
Why It Matters: When kids make their own lanterns—even simple ones from milk jugs—they own that moment of carrying light. The lantern means more because their hands created it.
Ways to Get Lanterns:
Option 1: Make from Household Items
- Milk jugs (ages 2+): Virtually indestructible with built-in handles
- Paper gift bags (ages 3+): Quick to make, easy to customize
- Glass jars (ages 4+): Creates beautiful light effects
Each uses items you likely have, plus tissue paper, glue, and battery lights (never real candles for safety).
Shopping Tips:
- Start collecting containers now (milk jugs, glass jars, paper bags)
- Grab LED string lights and tissue paper this week (regular string lights or wine cork lights – because of the smaller openings, the cork ones work great for milk jugs!)
- Basic craft glue works (Mod Podge glossy or sparkle version is our favorite!)
Little Banh Boo offers step-by-step tutorials for all three DIY lantern styles with our lantern craft printables (available on Etsy)
Option 2: Craft Kit Lanterns
If creating from scratch feels overwhelming, lantern craft kits give you the best of both worlds—kids still get the hands-on experience without the planning:
- Paper lanterns from Asian grocery stores
- Paper lanterns with LED lights from Amazon or party supply stores
- Traditional Vietnamese lanterns (star-shaped, animal designs)
The important part is the parade—kids carrying light—not whether you made it or bought it.
Activity 3: Mooncake Tasting
The Tradition: Sharing mooncakes represents completeness and togetherness—the round shape symbolizes the full moon and family reunion.
Why It Matters: When kids taste different varieties and describe what they notice, mooncakes become an experience, not just dessert. They’re engaging with the tradition actively.
How It Works: Get 3-4 different mooncakes (from anywhere—Asian markets, Vietnamese bakeries, or Costco if they’re available there). Let kids observe, taste, and rate them. What do they see? How does it taste? Would they eat it again?
Ways to Structure the Tasting:
Option 1: Simple Family Discussion
Just cut up mooncakes and talk about them together. No structure needed—let conversation flow naturally.
Option 2: Tasting Sheets
Give kids a way to record their observations and ratings. This works well for groups or kids who like more structure.
Little Banh Boo offers tasting sheets with kid-friendly rating systems with our mooncake coloring printables (available on Etsy)
The Beautiful Part: There’s no “right” mooncake. What matters is the discovery process and sharing opinions together.
Shopping Tips: All price points work—mix affordable options with one special variety if you’d like.
For authentic Vietnamese mooncakes specifically, see Where to Buy Vietnamese Mooncakes in California (+ Nationwide Shipping).
Activity 4: Playdough Mooncakes
The Tradition: Mooncakes are central to Mid-Autumn Festival, representing completeness and family unity. Their round shape symbolizes the full moon and the circular nature of family bonds.
Why It Matters: When kids make their own “mooncakes” with playdough, they engage with the tradition hands-on while learning about shapes, patterns, and the care that goes into creating something special for family. It’s also perfect for little hands that want to help but aren’t quite ready for real baking.
What You Need:
- Playdough (store-bought or homemade)
- Mooncake molds (wooden or plastic)
- Alternative molds: cookie cutters, small bowls, or anything that creates round shapes
How It Works:
- Roll playdough into balls
- Press firmly into mooncake molds
- Carefully remove to reveal the pattern
- Let kids arrange their “mooncakes” on plates for a pretend tea party
- Talk about the patterns and what they might mean
Shopping Tips:
- Look for mooncake molds at Asian kitchen stores or online
- Traditional wooden molds create the most authentic patterns (like this classic set)
- Intricate detailed molds for elaborate designs (beautiful patterns here)
- For beginners, try this affordable starter set that includes multiple designs
- No molds? Use cookie cutters to make round shapes and let kids press designs with chopsticks or forks
The Beautiful Part: Kids can “serve” their playdough mooncakes to family members, practice the tradition of sharing, and even “gift” them to stuffed animals or dolls. It becomes a way to act out the generosity and care that real mooncakes represent.
Activity 5: Paper Decorations
The Tradition: Decorating homes with lanterns, moon symbols, and festive colors creates the atmosphere of celebration. In Vietnam, streets fill with red and gold, lantern shops overflow, and homes transform.
Why It Matters: When kids help create decorations—painting moon phases, stringing lantern garlands, cutting shadow puppets—they’re building the celebration, not just attending it.
Ways to Decorate:
Option 1: Print and Create
- Moon phases: Teach about how the moon changes while creating glow-in-the-dark decorations
- Lantern garlands: Kids choose which designs, what order, how to arrange them
- Mooncake pattern circles: Kids color traditional geometric mooncake designs that can be cut out and used as table decorations or hung as a garland
- Story silhouettes: Characters from the legends become shadow play props or window art
Shopping Tips for DIY: Cardstock holds up better than copy paper for decorations that get handled. Glow-in-the-dark paint adds magic (Crayola makes kid-safe versions).
Little Banh Boo offers printable templates for moon phases, lantern designs, mooncake coloring pages, and story silhouettes (available on Etsy)
Option 2: Ready-Made Decorations
- Paper lantern garlands from Asian party supply stores
- Moon and star decorations from Amazon or party stores
- Red and gold streamers from any party supply section
Option 3: Natural Decorations
- Arrange round fruits (oranges, pomelos) as symbols of the full moon
- Use yellow and orange flowers
- Light candles safely in the center of your table
Mix and match approaches—maybe kids make some decorations and you supplement with store-bought items.
Activity 6: Setting Up a Family Altar
The Tradition: For many Vietnamese families, Mid-Autumn Festival includes honoring ancestors through a family altar. Similar to ofrendas in Mexican tradition, these altars create a space to remember loved ones who have passed, express gratitude, and maintain connection across generations. This practice of filial piety—respecting and honoring elders and ancestors—is central to Vietnamese values.
In Vietnamese tradition, prayers and messages to ancestors are sent through incense smoke. The rising smoke carries intentions, gratitude, and love upward—a beautiful symbolic bridge between the living and those who have passed. Children might see adults light incense, bow respectfully, and speak softly to photos of grandparents or great-grandparents.
Why It Matters: When children help prepare an altar, they learn that family extends beyond those physically present. They hear stories about grandparents or great-grandparents they may never have met. They see that love and remembrance continue even after death.
For families who practice ancestor veneration, this becomes a way to pass on both spiritual practices and family history.
How Kids Can Participate:
- Arranging fruit offerings (typically round fruits like oranges symbolizing completeness)
- Placing mooncakes on the altar
- Setting up incense holders (a simple bowl of dry rice works perfectly as an incense holder)
- Arranging photos of ancestors
- Helping light incense (with adult supervision)
- Placing cups of tea or favorite foods of the deceased
- Learning to bow respectfully
What Makes This Different: The focus is on remembering and honoring, not perfection. A simple arrangement made with a child’s help holds more meaning than an elaborate display they only observe.
Ways to Approach This:
Option 1: Traditional Family Altar If your family already has an altar:
- Let children help refresh it for the festival
- Explain who is in the photos
- Share stories about these family members
- Teach them how prayers are offered through incense
- Include children in the practice if this is part of your tradition
Option 2: Simple Festival Remembrance If you don’t have a permanent altar but want to honor this tradition:
- Set up a small table with photos and offerings just for the festival
- Use what you have—a corner of the dining table works
- Create an incense holder by filling a small bowl with dry rice (it holds incense sticks perfectly)
- Include items that connect to family members: favorite foods, flowers, mementos
Option 3: Storytelling Focus If ancestor veneration isn’t part of your practice but you want to honor family:
- Create a photo display of family members (living and deceased)
- Share stories about these people during the festival
- Let kids ask questions about family history
What You Might Include:
- Photos of family members who have passed
- Fresh flowers
- Fruit offerings (oranges, pomelos, grapes)
- Mooncakes
- Tea or favorite beverages of the deceased
- Incense with a simple holder (bowl of dry rice works great)
- Small personal items or mementos
Simple Incense Setup: Don’t have an incense holder? Use a small decorative bowl filled with dry, uncooked rice. The rice holds incense sticks upright and catches any ash. This works beautifully and is often what families use anyway.
The Beautiful Part: There’s no single “right” way to do this. Some families have elaborate altars with specific rituals. Others create simple remembrances. What matters is the intention—teaching children about family, memory, and respect for those who came before.
Cultural Context: This practice connects to Buddhist and Taoist traditions, but Vietnamese families of all backgrounds may honor ancestors in various ways. Follow what feels meaningful for your family, whether that’s traditional prayers with incense, simple remembrance, or just sharing stories.
Quick Shopping List
Buy This Week:
- Mooncakes (3-4 varieties, any source works)
- LED lights (safe for kids)
- Tissue paper (if making lanterns)
- Basic craft supplies (if decorating)
- Photo supplies (if making memory books)
Collect Now:
- Containers (milk jugs, jars, paper bags) – if making DIY lanterns
Or Consider:
- Pre-made lanterns
- Ready-made decorations
- Children’s books about the legends
Feeling overwhelmed by choices? Little Banh Boo’s Mid-Autumn Festival Shopping Guide helps you decide what’s worth buying and what to skip—from realistic mooncake shopping to smart lantern choices.
What This All Means
These activities aren’t about doing Mid-Autumn Festival “right.” They’re about finding ways for your family to engage with Vietnamese traditions that fit your life—your budget, your time, your reality.
Some families will make everything from scratch. Others will buy ready-made items. Many will mix both approaches. All of these choices honor the tradition.
What matters isn’t how you celebrate, but that you do. Wherever you are is home. The traditions you create there, adapted and imperfect as they might be, connect your children to something meaningful. The moon shines the same everywhere, after all.
Ready to start planning? Little Banh Boo’s Complete Mid-Autumn Festival Preparation Guide breaks down what to do each week leading up to the celebration, helping you create your own meaningful version of this beautiful tradition.