Japan: Kite festival

Last month was Japan in our group geography lesson, Around the World in 12 Dishes, but I didn’t get it written then, and these are just too cute for words.  Besides, this Japanese Kite Festival lesson was a great chance to learn more about another culture AND make a fun simple craft.

Future Ticia 2022 here, I’m updating this, and many of the things I talked about 10 years ago do not exist now, so I’m changing it around a little bit.

(there are affiliate links in here)

Japanese Kite Festival lesson resources

First, let’s look at a little bit about the Japanese Kite Festival.

This first video is great for upper elementary kids who have a bit more patience.

And this is more of a quick video you can show your younger kids with lots of really cool kites.

Also, that kite is freaking huge!

But, here are a couple of books on Kite Festivals, these are not specific to Japan but give the idea of the events.

• Kite Festival– This is set in the United States, and refers to a Hispanic family, and is also how I learned there are kite festivals in Colombia.
• Chinese Kite Festival– The book has words in both Chinese and English, which if you read it with older kids they will make fun of your bad pronunciation (not that Future Ticia 2022’s teens would do that, not at all)

Our Japanese Kite Festival craft

Future Ticia 2022 wants to apologize for Ticia 2012’s photo editing. This was right around when Instagram first came out and so all of my photos at the time were saved with all sorts of odd filters. Sigh, they look cool, but also very obviously with filters.

Kite Festival craft supplies

What you use will 100% depend on if you want a kite that flies. Our kites will not fly because of all the glitter glue.

Pick a Koi fish coloring page (I like this one), crayons or markers, glitter glue (because who doesn’t like sparkle)

Did you know that Michael’s stores host kids’ crafts for free (future Ticia 2022 says, this may not be happening right now with Covid)?  I found this out when a local blog, Free Fun in Austin, posted about it, and it just so happened to work with our schedule, so we headed off to make some Japanese kites.

They gave the kids fish to color, and then a piece of card stock to decorate with glitter glue, and sequins.  Princess was in heaven.  I think she might have floated off of her chair, and added about 5 pounds of glitter glue to her kite.
After they cut out their kite (cut your koi fish out in a diamond shape), glued on their fish, and put a ribbon tail on.

I think she likes it, what do you think?

A kite that will actually fly

This is a bit boring, so I’d suggest watching this by yourself and using the information to create your own kite from it, but don’t try watching it with your kids, because they will not let you concentrate.

See, that craft I shared with you, it’s not really going to fly, it is going to be way too weighed down by glitter and markers, but it will look cool. Which let’s be honest, that’s all our kids really care about at 6 years old.

As a side note, after we went to Target to get new laundry baskets because our old ones were rather broken down.  I wonder why?

“Swimming towards the sky” by Madacor is licensed under CC BY 2.0