This week’s theme:

The Mysteries of… Summer

This week’s colouring in sheet:

Download and print this week’s colouring sheet here.

Fact of the day:

Summer is celebrated in many different festivals all over the world.

Resources list:

Colourful materials; Youtube; Cardboard, scissors; Paper, selotape, pens/colouring materials; Flowers, egg boxes, tissue paper, natural bits and pieces collected from outside.

Activity 1:

Aomori Nebuta Matsuri Festival is a summer festival held in Japan every August. During the festival vibrant lantern floats depicting gods and mythical characters are paraded through the streets. Constructed out of washi, a traditional Japanese handmade paper, the floats take up to one year to construct. As the floats are pushed through the streets, creating a river of colour, the parade is brought to life by groups of taiko drummers and dancers.

Make a river of colour in you room by collecting colourful material from all over your house (clothes/sheets/towels/teatowels) and laying them on the floor in a river shape. You could make paper boats decorated with faces and characters to act as the floats.

Watch this video of taiko drummers, can you drum along in time either using pens or wooden spoons on a tabletop, bucket or washing up bowl, or simply your hands on your thighs.

Activity 2:

Every summer Puck Fair is held in Killorglin, Ireland. The fair gets its name from the Irish word ‘poc,’ which means billy goat, as the event honors a wild goat that acted heroically during a battle in 1600. During the summer festival the people of Killorglin choose one mountain goat each year and crown him “King Puck” for the duration of the festival.

Can you do an impression of a goat. Can you jump about like a goat?

You can watch goats on this webcam live from Wales.

Make a crown (it could look something like this ) and crown somebody for how well they’ve done during lockdown.

Activity 3:

Ghost Festival, China. In China, the seventh lunar month of the Chinese Lunar Calendar (August) is Ghost Month. At this time it’s believed ghosts re-enter the living world. To keep the ghosts satisfied families worship their ancestors by offering sacrifices of food, money and entertainment at Ghost Festival. During the festival  you can see glowing lanterns floating along Chinese rivers. According to Chinese tradition, these lanterns direct the lost ghosts back to their families.

Make a Chinese summer festival lantern like here or here. You could draw ghosts on your paper before cutting the lantern slits!

Activity 4:

With roots in pagan times, Swedish Midsummer is a celebration of the summer solstice, (the longest day of the year), but it is also a celebration of life and love. One central aspect of the celebration is to dance around the midsummer pole, or midsommarstång. Find something in your house, such as a chair, to dance in a circle around in time to this music.

At Swedish Midsummer it’s traditional to wear a flower crown. You could recreate this look by putting real flowers found outside into your hair, perhaps using hair slides. Or, you could make a paper flower crown with egg box flowers, tissue paper flowers, or your own drawn flowers. Or, you could tape natural objects to your headband.