New Year prompts by age
“Use this prompt” fills in the generator and sets the detail level. Every page is drawn fresh, so if one misses, change one detail and try again.
| For | Prompt | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Ages 2 to 5Simple | a party hat, a noisemaker and balloons with confetti, big simple shapes, no background Three party things in big shapes, with confetti small enough to dot with a marker. |
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| Ages 5 to 8Simple | fireworks bursting in the sky above a row of three small houses, big simple shapes, white sky Each burst is an outline on a white sky, so every firework can get its own colors. |
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| Ages 6 to 9Medium | a round clock with tick marks and no numbers, surrounded by party hats, streamers and balloons, clean bold outlines With no numbers on the clock, none can come out wrong: children write in 1 to 12 themselves, a time lesson for the last day of the year. |
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| Class activitySimple | a wide empty banner across the middle of the page with stars, confetti and streamers around the edges, big simple shapes Room for the year or a wish for January, written by hand (see below). |
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| Teens and adultsMedium | firework bursts and stars filling the whole page in a symmetrical pattern, each burst a separate outline, clean bold lines A page of separate bursts to fill slowly, like a mandala made of fireworks. |
Write the year by hand
The generator draws pictures and cannot be relied on to write words or numbers, so a prompt that asks for “2027” or “Happy New Year” can come back with letters that are wrong or not letters at all. Leave the words out of the prompt and add them yourself:
- Ask for “an empty banner” or “an empty sign” where the words should go, as in the class activity prompt above.
- Write 2027 in pencil on one copy before you photocopy it, so every child's page has it.
- Let older children draw the year in bubble letters and color it as part of the page.
A plan for New Year's Eve
Midnight is late for young children, so pick an earlier time to count down if you need to. Make the pages a day or two ahead: two on the free plan, or the whole set with Pro.
- Early evening: the party hat page for the youngest, fireworks or the clock for older children.
- An hour before your countdown: children draw the clock hands at the time you will count down, and hang the page up.
- At the countdown: everyone holds up a finished page for a photo.
- On 1 January: a goals page from the banner prompt, for the year ahead.
Why a ball drops in Times Square
People were celebrating New Year's Eve in Times Square by 1904, and in 1907 the first New Year's Eve Ball was lowered from the flagpole on top of One Times Square. It was made of iron and wood, lit by one hundred 25-watt bulbs, 5 feet across and 700 pounds in weight. The ball has been lowered every year since, except in 1942 and 1943, when the wartime “dimout” of New York's lights stopped it; the crowds still came and greeted the new year with a minute of silence and chimes (Times Square Alliance).
The idea is older than the party. In 1833 a “time-ball” was put up on the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, in England. It dropped at one o'clock every afternoon, so that captains of ships nearby could set their chronometers (Times Square Alliance). That makes a good page for a history lesson: a ball on a mast above an old observatory, drawn as outlines.