Lights - Christmas Around the World for Kids - Japan
For the eighth activity in our Christmas Around the World for Kids series we're going to stay in Japan for a STEM challenge!
As we mentioned yesterday, Japan is a country in Asia made from over 6800 islands! There are 6 main islands and over 400 islands with people:
Christmas in Japan is a time of year to celebrate family, friendship, and happiness! Remember that it's not an official national holiday, but decorations and celebrations abound--much like Valentines Day in the United States. One of the most famous decorations are the "illuminations" or Christmas lights!
Some of the most spectacular light displays fill Japanese cities in November and December. These illuminations draw visitors from around the world! Cities like Tokyo actually have dozens (and maybe hundreds!) of light festivals and events every Christmas season! Trees, decorations, gardens, ponds, streets, and more light up to celebrate the season!
Christmas Around the World Japan STEM Challenge:
To celebrate I challenged my kids to decorate something with lights! It was a simple activity, but it let them pick something that wasn't lit up, and make it colorful! And it let us talk about Japan again, which was nice because we have some family history stories about when their grandparents visited Japan.
It's actually more of a STEAM challenge than "just" a STEM activity because they needed to use science reasoning skills to engineer an artistic electric light display.
In the end, my kids hung a string along the tops of our living room windows. They connected it to the tree lights, and made the droop just low enough that you can see them from outside.
Today, one of my daughters told me we needed to hang some more lights outside...maybe she'll get to it this weekend!
Our homeschool is learning about Christmas around the world this year with 12 different activities--this was the eighth one! I would LOVE if you joined us!! I will be linking all the activities to THIS PAGE, so you can pick and choose which to do. There's also a link to get the passport that I made there (for free) and a giveaway that will run from December 1st-16th! And, I'll be linking to a new Christmas Around the World for Kids activity each week day until all 12 are up!
And if you're looking for more homeschool unit studies, be sure to check out our growing collection here!
Happy Educating,
Carla & the kids who don't sit still!
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