Columbus Day Fun with Kids

Columbus Day is more than just a public school, post office, federal employee holiday. It is a chance to have fun delving into history with your kids, you'd be surprised how much we adults can learn when having fun with the kids! In this article, I hope to offer some ideas of Columbus Day fun to have with your kids-whether you send them to public school or whether you(like me) homeschool. In our homeschooling world, Columbus Day fun lasts all day long, from crafts to maps to meals and snacks, we make it all about Columbus.

First, some Columbus Day learning is in order to know/remind of what exactly we are celebrating. This year, I plan to use several sites and television programs on dvd to do this with. Here are my ideas, hopefully you and yours will find them interesting and fun as well.

Website Fun
This site walks through a neat slideshow of Christopher Columbus' history, who he was and what he did. Lot of interactive things to click on and learn more about specific items on the ships, and the like.

Another site to check out this Columbus Day is http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/1492.exhibit/Intro.html.

At this website, you can view exhibit items that are on display at the Library of Congress. This site, while extremely informative, is more intensive 'study-like' for those who prefer in-depth reading over fun game-like learning.

DVD programs- the Great Adventurers series on DVD has a Christopher Columbus program that chronicles the explorer's life and overcoming of many odds to embark upon and complete his missions. Also, the Biography DVD series program of the same title(Christopher Columbus: The New World)is one we hope to watch and learn from together.

The programs and websites will bring a lot of fun learning to our Columbus Day celebration, but in our house the following craft and play ideas will most likely reign supreme.

Build a boat- Offer many craft supplies such as construction paper, glue sticks, pipe cleaners, various small swatches of fabric for sails and let the kids have at it building their own versions of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria of Columbus' sailing trio.

Papier-mache globe-Getting messy in the name of learning is always a good thing around our house, this papier mache globe is no exception.

The supplies needed for this Columbus Day project are:
a round balloon
flour and water(to make the glue)
lots of old newspapers
an old plastic container for mixing the glue
a stick or old spoon for stirring the glue
a printer
blue and green tempera paint
pencil
a dark marker

The first step in making our Columbus Day globe is to make the glue. Mix one cup of flour with one cup of water, creating a thin, watery glue. To make the glue ideal, stir this mixture into 3 cups of boiling water, simmer for 3 minutes and cool. The heating of this glue is not essential but it will give the glue a good sticky consistency for this project.

Next, tear a lot of strips of the newspaper. The strips should be about 1 inch in width, but length does not really matter.
Blow up and tie a knot in enough round balloons so that each person participating will have one.
Dip each strip of newspaper in the glue, wipe off the excess glue and wrap the strip around the balloon at least 3 layers deep.
Let the newspaper encased balloon dry-this part may take two or three days.
Print out maps of the Earth or use maps you've found to buy and glue them onto the dry globe.
Paint the continents on the maps with the green paint, allow to dry and then paint the oceans with the blue paint. Let the globe dry yet again.
Using the dark marker, have each person mark the places on the Earth relevant to the story of Columbus as well as those relevant to each individual.

And there you have the Columbas Day globe, a quite involved project but rife with lots of learning opportunities and hands-on creativite fun.

Now, let's talk about Columbus Day food ideas. There is not really a traditional 'Columbus Day' menu as the day more of a celebration of Columbus' place in American history than anything else. That being said, however, there are some fun food ideas we can import into our Columbus Day celebration.

Columbus' Boat- Take celery and fill it with peanut butter then add a flag using a piece of a fruit rollup stuck onto the top of a toothpick. Stick the flag into the peanut butter and sail away with a fun and health snack.

Native Fruit Salad- Giving a vague nod to Columbus' discovery of 'natives', here is a fun and simple fruit salad that the kids can mix up and enjoy this Columbus Day. Any type of fruit will do, but for this recipe we'll use cut up apples, pears, grapes and peaches. Put all the cut up fruit in a bowl and add a package of softened/ whipped cream cheese and mix it all up well. Serve with pretzel sticks for added fun in your Columbus Day celebration.

That wraps up our Columbus Day celebration ideas for this year. Hopefully you've enjoyed this article and gained some fun learning ideas to use with your family and/or friends.