Professor Labcoat celebrates National Maker Week!

Hello everyone! Professor Labcoat here. It’s National Maker Week, and today I’d like to show you how to learn about electrical circuits using play dough!

We use electricity to power all kinds of things every day. Electricity is what we call it when charged particles are pushed around, and we can make, or “generate”, electricity in many different ways. The power plants that generate electricity for entire cities use huge magnets to push electricity through the big wires that we see along the side of the road, solar panels use light energy from the sun to push electricity around, and batteries use chemical reactions.

The materials needed for this experiment are 4 AA batteries, a light emitting diode (LED), and some play dough that’s made with salt. There are many recipes online for play dough; I made some by combining 2 cups of flour and ½ cup of salt with roughly 1 cup of water added slowly. Food coloring can make for a fun color addition. You can also add a couple of teaspoons of oil and a teaspoon of cream of tartar to help with the texture, or just use some of the store bought variety!

Finding a light emitting diode (LED) might be a little tricky. I took apart a small finger-mounted flashlight to get mine. These parts are also available at many electronics stores or online for less than a dollar apiece.

The first thing we need for our circuit is something to generate the electricity. The chemical reactions inside the batteries will do this for us by pushing charged particles from one side of the battery to the other. We want all the push to go in the same direction, so we need to line up our batteries end-to-end and pointing in the same way. A little ball of dough acts as a conductor between our batteries. We need these batteries to push the electricity hard enough to make our LED light up. We measure the push of electricity in units called “volts”. Each battery gives 1.5 volts worth of push to the electricity, so four in a row give 6 volts of push total. This should be strong enough to move electricity through both the dough and the LED.

The play dough is our conductor. Instead of electrons moving through metal, our electricity will take the form of tiny pieces of the salt (called “ions”) moving through the water in the dough. It takes more energy to move ions through dough than to move electrons through metal, so dough wouldn’t make a very good extension cord. It is safe to use with the batteries, however, because it won’t heat up as a metal wire would. Plus, it’s fun to squish!

Electricity can only move through LEDs in one direction, so you might need to switch yours around a little bit before it works. Once you’ve got a circuit together, you can try out different things! What happens if your dough rolls are fat and short? Skinny and long? Does it change the brightness of your bulb?

There are many people who have created many great lessons to go along with this kind of circuitry. Check out the wonderful work of the University of St. Thomas and their “Squishy Circuit” homepage!

I hope you enjoy making your play dough circuit and learning about electricity! There are many wonderful things that we can use science to build and understand, and Makers the world over have created many fantastic resources for Young Makers!

Take care!

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Giving children time to explore

Earlier this week, in The New York Times, David Kohn wrote about children and learning, and although he didn’t use the exact phrase that we do here, “The power of play,” it still resonates throughout his story. Children learn through hands-on exploration. They need to set their own pace, and they need to be given constant opportunities to use their imagination, create rules and boundaries, and interact with other children.

From Kohn’s story, “Play is often perceived as immature behavior that doesn’t achieve anything,” says David Whitebread, a psychologist at Cambridge University who has studied the topic for decades. “But it’s essential to their development. They need to learn to persevere, to control attention, to control emotions. Kids learn these things through playing.” You can’t teach these things, and you certainly can’t test them. Children will observe and respond and learn at different levels, but even the silliest-looking play has so much more going on than can be quantified, objectified, and compartmentalized.

Kristin Tillotson, writing in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, uses an analogy familiar to anybody who’s read the Sunday funnies: when kids explore, it looks like one of the characters in Bil Keane’s The Family Circus, taking off on their meandering, “serpentine” paths, connecting points A and B by way of every other possible letter. We see this a lot with our regular guests. Sometimes, they arrive and the child has a very specific idea about which area of our Museum they’d like to explore and go straight there, but just as often, we’ll see a child absolutely determined to climb in our treehouse, but only after winding around through every other place they can find and writing their name on our paint wall first.

It’s pretty amusing watching children do this, but it’s also perfectly natural behavior. Tillotson calls this “informal meandering” an organic way to learn, and Marjorie Bequette, director of evaluation and research at the Science Museum of Minnesota, agrees, pointing out that children respond to being in charge of the adventure.

Even looking around and observing things in a space, whether it’s one you are familiar with or one that’s brand new, has so much value. In her story, Tillotson mentions that some New York police officers receive training in observation at the Museum of Modern Art. I read some more about that in a 2009 story at Smithsonian, and learned that there is a program where veteran officers get an early morning class in observation. It’s evidence for Tillotson’s theory that museums really are mind-expanding, and that, whether you’re an adult or a child, the experience at any museum is one where the observer is continually learning.

When you next visit us, once you catch up with your child after their “serpentine” tour of the place, try spending a few minutes asking questions about what they have explored and observed. What does the Moon Sand feel like? How many lights do they see? What do they notice about colors and shapes? Perhaps they’ll have some questions about what you have seen and explored as well, so keep your eyes and ears open as you play with your children… you may just learn a thing or two yourself!

http://www.startribune.com/museums-are-literally-mind-expanding-researchers-say/301738001/?stfeature=S
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/teaching-cops-to-see-138500635/?no-ist

Fairy Tales Thrive in the Telling

Ask a dozen academics why fairy tales have such staying power and resonance and you’re sure to get a dozen different answers. Folk tales go back centuries, and the details shift and change in the telling. As books became available, and later, films were made to adapt the stories, they took on new details, additional characters, and often songs to pad out the running time. But even before the possibilities of print or animation, the tales that we know and love from our childhood had evolved and changed as the stories moved around different cultural groups.

We’re thinking about legends and folk tales a lot this week because we’re so happy to be welcoming back a really popular exhibit, last seen on the Museum floor in 2011, Once Upon a Time…Exploring the World of Fairy Tales. If you missed it the last time around, you’re in for a treat. From an African jungle to a giant’s castle, this unique and educational exhibit focuses on the power and significance of fairy tales throughout history and from around the world. Children will enter an enchanted storybook kingdom where they’ll learn the meaning and history of tales they’ve known all their lives, and others that may be new to them.

The featured tales are “Anansi and the Talking Melon,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Cinderella,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Lon Po Po,” “The Shoemaker and the Elves,” and “Thumbelina.” Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring the origins of all of these fairy tales, starting with “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

“Jack and the Beanstalk” is correctly called an English folk tale, dating to the early 1800s, but the metaphorical “beans” came from all over Europe before the version of the tale that you might find most familiar took “root.” The concept of climbing some kind of plant life to reach an otherwise impossible-to-access realm in the sky is centuries old. Norse mythology considered a gigantic tree called Yggdrasil whose branches were in heaven, as does Buddhist tradition, where it is described as a Bodhi tree. The Book of Genesis offered the tale of Jacob’s Ladder, which also reached heaven. The “Jack and the Beanstalk” section of the exhibit features a small “beanstalk” for children to climb, which is really quite fun. Don’t worry, parents, the beanstalk doesn’t stretch quite so high that your children will vanish into the clouds!

Germanic folklore is positively packed with giants and ogres, most of whom selfishly guard treasure and need to be outwitted or defeated. That makes them the perfect antagonist for a traditional, clever, and sharp-thinking hero. England in the 15th and 16th Century brought us just such a hero in a bright young commoner, typically called Jack, who appeared in dozens of folk tales. (There’s a “house that Jack built,” for example.) Mix in a little Shakespeare – the giant’s traditional warning cry of “Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman” comes almost directly from King Lear – and the basic form of the story is pretty typical of 18th Century folklore from the British Isles.

One of the great things about fairy tales is that despite the usual conclusions like “The end” or “And they all lived happily ever after,” they’re still evolving and adapting, with no end in sight. Jack himself has been replaced in dozens and dozens of adaptations over the last seventy years by everybody from Mickey Mouse to Ernie to Nintendo’s Mario to the casts of The Goodies and The Magic School Bus, and they all bring their own spins to the story, making anybody who remembers the version that they heard or saw then retell it differently to their own children. How many trips did Jack make up to the giant’s castle, anyway? Was it just the one, or did he pilfer all the giant’s treasure over the course of a week? Was the giant a lone miser, or did he have a wife who helped Jack bedevil her cruel husband?

And is it really fair to root for Jack, stealing the giant’s gold and ensuring his grisly end? Some adaptations, including a 1952 Abbott & Costello comedy, include some rather important details about Jack and his community’s poverty, blaming the giant for stealing all the area’s gold. On the other end of the spectrum, a 2001 TV miniseries directed by Brian Henson, shown in America on CBS, painted Jack as the villain of the piece, and sent his descendant back to the kingdom of the giants to return the stolen property and atone for the crime.

How will your child interpret the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk”? How will you retell it to him or her at bedtime? We’re sure you will add a detail or two, and your child will tell a slightly different version to his or her own kids down the line as the stories continue to evolve with each new generation.

Once Upon a Time… Exploring the World of Fairy Tales opens this Saturday, May 16, and runs through July 26. We hope that you’ll come and play with us!

For more information about Jack and the Beanstalk and its cultural origins, see:
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/jackbeanstalk/history.html
https://suite.io/john-k-davis/1wj72tj
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_and_the_Beanstalk

Staff Pick: Earth Day Toys

Earth Day is right around the corner and here at the Museum we love to encourage healthy planet habits that take care of Earth! We will be celebrating Earth Day this weekend with Novelis on Saturday and Sunday. This will be the 45th anniversary of the Earth Day movement, meaning 45 years of “broadening the base of support for environmental programs, rekindling public commitment and building community activism around the world through a broad range of events and activities”. All the environmental activities and lessons are very important to pass down to our children.

We currently have some awesome items in our Museum Store that are definitely Earth Day appropriate. Our staff picked out their 3 favorite Earth Day items from the store and shared a little bit about why they liked the particular items.

Kareen Dames, manager of museum sales, recommends:

The Busy Bug Gardens is my favorite thing in the Museum Store because I love butterflies! This awesome little kit allows children to learn about gardening and enjoying the site of Monarch butterflies and hummingbirds, both of which are attracted to the Purple Coneflower that will sprout from the seeds in the kit. I also like that this is an activity that can be done inside or outside.

Debbie Palay. director of development, recommends:

I would recommend spending time with the Solar Print Kit. These kits are an excellent way to teach kids about the power of the sun and the chemical process behind the imaging that takes place on the special paper. This is an activity that is suitable and appealing to both boys and girls and can be a fun way to spend a sunny afternoon.

Cayce Dunn, digital marketing manager, recommends:

I love the Recycled Paper Beads kit! I love doing crafts and the fact that this craft also recycles was definitely a two-for-one plus! Making paper beads always seemed tedious and a little tiring by hand, but this gadget that fits perfectly on a recycled water bottle looks like a super simple and efficient way to make beads. Not to mention, the added bonus of the recycled water bottle being used as a container for the finished beads. I love the idea of showing children how old magazine pages can be used to create fun jewelry and awesome one-of-a-kind handmade gifts. Recycling is definitely a planet-friendly way of using your imagination to figure out how to use the most out of the stuff you have!

If you plan on visiting us to celebrate Earth Day, drop by the Museum store to check out these items. They would make awesome gifts or just a fun activity to take a part of the Museum and the message home with you. Earth Day celebrations at the Museum begin Saturday, April 18th at 12 PM. The fun will continue Sunday, April 19th at 3:00 PM. Check our Programming Schedule for more info of the days happenings!

Source: EarthDay.org

 

Science Around Atlanta: Physics & Roller Coasters

Hello girls and boys! Professor Labcoat here!

In my last blog post, I said, “No matter what you’re interested in or what question you have, there’s probably a scientist somewhere trying to figure it out.” That’s very true, because science is a way to learn about the world around us and everything that’s in it. There are all different kinds of scientists who are interested in all different kinds of things! You can learn more about almost anything that you’re interested in by using science.

The other day, my friend Cayce got to go to Six Flags Over Georgia to try out their Batman: The Ride roller coaster…backwards! She had a lot of fun, and even got a video of her on the ride! I decided that it’d be fun to use her video to talk about the science we can learn from roller coasters.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t a big fan of roller coasters, but I like them more and more these days. Roller coasters do some pretty cool things. They can go very fast, turn upside down, and make you dizzy very quickly. It seems pretty complicated at first, but science can help us to understand complicated things!

To figure out roller coasters, we need to think about things called “forces”. A force is a push or pull on something, and this can happen in a lot of different ways. When something pushes or pulls on something else, we say it’s “applying a force”. For example, if you push someone on a swing, you are applying a pushing force to them. If the wind blows your hair around, that’s a force the wind is applying to your hair. And you’re stuck to the ground because the earth’s gravity is applying a force pulling you downward!

Some kind of force is needed to make something start to move, slow down, or change direction. We might not always realize this is what’s going on, however, because forces can show up in places that we don’t always expect.

For example, if you throw a beanbag, you push on it with your hand to apply the force to get it to start moving. Once the beanbag leaves your hand, it’s not getting any more force from you. There are still forces on the beanbag, though, and these forces work against the force of your throw! One force is a push back from the air the beanbag is moving through. This slows the beanbag down a little bit. Another force is the force of gravity. This pulls the beanbag towards the ground. Finally, when the beanbag hits the ground, the ground applies a force that stops it from moving!

This all seems very normal to us because we deal with these kinds of forces in our everyday lives. It took scientists a long time to figure out all of these forces are happening, because everybody was so used to them! But, if you were an astronaut in space far away from the earth with no air around you, no ground under you, and no gravity to speak of, and you threw a beanbag, it would keep going in a straight line for thousands of years! It wouldn’t have any other forces around to change how it moved.

So, what does this have to do with roller coasters?

A person riding a roller coaster, such as my friend Cayce, moves in a lot of different directions at different speeds. All these changes in speed and direction mean that there are a lot of forces changing the way the person is moving. When we ride a roller coaster, we feel these forces as pushes and pulls from the straps on our seats.

One of the most important forces for roller coasters to work the way they do is the force of gravity. Just like our beanbag example, where the force from your hand gives the beanbag the push to get it started, gravity provides the force that moves you around on a roller coaster. You see, there are no motors or engines on roller coaster cars. What happens at the start of almost every roller coaster is the ride pulls you up a tall hill, and then pushes you off the edge. You can see this in Cayce’s video: at the beginning, she and her sister slowly move up a hill. The moment they start moving after that, the only force that’s making them move faster is the force of gravity pulling them down!

The first hill of a roller coaster is always the tallest part of a roller coaster, because after gravity starts to pull you around, it won’t be able to make you move to a taller place than where you started. In much the same way, if you drop a bouncy ball (without throwing it at the ground!), it will never bounce higher than where you dropped it.

Roller coasters are designed to make sure that the forces they apply to the riders aren’t enough to hurt them; this is a big part of the reason why you have to be a certain height to ride roller coasters! The seats are designed to make sure that they push and pull on the right parts of people. When roller coasters go upside down, the forces applied to the riders make sure that gravity can’t pull them out of their seats. And, sometimes on roller coasters, as the forces are changing around, you don’t feel any forces at all! This is called feeling “zero-g”. The “g” stands for “gravity”, and this means that you feel weightless. A feeling of weightlessness is what astronauts in the International Space Station experience! It’s only during special occasions that we get to have that sensation on the earth, which is one of the reasons roller coasters and other fun amusement park rides are so exciting!

I hope you enjoyed learning about roller coasters with me, and I look forward to talking about all sorts of other things with you in this space. Take care!

Gardening With Kids

Gardening with children is a very important, and fun, activity to experience with your kids! Exposing children to where their food comes from or how flowers and plants grow allows them to understand and experience a natural process that can help them learn patience, problem-solving, science and an overall appreciation of nature’s way. Gardening can give kids a sense of responsibility, empowerment and accomplishment.

Pike Nurseries is a great place to go locally to get all the supplies you need to begin gardening with children. There are so many ways to begin the process. If the weather isn’t cooperating, plant a garden indoors. Pike Nurseries has a free class on container gardening this weekend! It can be as simple as an taking an egg carton, filling each section with dirt and planting little seeds in each so you can watch the little sprouts come up. Once you decide between planting flowers or food, you need to make sure to have the right soil and space available. And don’t forget about garden protection! Birds love to feast on your hard work, so some kind of cover can be necessary for fruits and veggies.

When you begin to till the soil, explain why it’s good to rough up the soil and how the seeds will need water and good soil to grow healthy roots! Tilling can be an easy activity for a toddler as young as 4. Once you plant the seeds, make sure to keep note of what seeds are planted where. Making little identifiers can be a fun craft project. Or draw the garden in a notebook and keep track with fun illustrations. You can explain along the way about how important it is to plan ahead with watering the garden and keeping any weeds out. This will help with teaching children about responsibility.

A garden will definitely keep kids guessing and wondering as the sprout turns into a little plant and the little plant turns into a flower or fruit/veggie. The important thing is to always remember that the time spent teaching children about the colors, shapes, sizes, soils, tools and tips of gardening is definitely a time to cherish and one that will surely impact their lives in a positive way.

Sources: Mom.me – Tips for Toddlers | Mom.me – 10 Reasons to Garden with Kids | Pike Nurseries – Free Classes
Photo Credit: Pike Nurseries

The Wonderful World of the Wizard of Oz

“I’m melting! I’m melting!”
“We’re not in Kansas anymore.”
“Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!”
“I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!”
And of course, “There’s no place like home.”

These quotes have become a part of American culture over the past 75 years since the world was introduced to the musical The Wizard of Oz. The most expensive production for MGM at the time, the movie is noted for its use of Technicolor, as well as its musical score, elaborate make up, and special effects. Surprising to most, the movie was not a box office success, leaving the studio with an initial loss. It was still nominated for six Academy Awards, winning two: Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

We did a little research and found that the production of the movie and its lasting legacy are almost as fun as watching the movie itself. For example, did you know that 20th Century Fox wanted to make the movie with Shirley Temple as Dorothy? The role was eventually taken by Judy Garland, who was only 16 at the time, made $500 per month, and had to attend school on set everyday.

One of the original proposals for the movie’s production was to have Toto played by a human actor when the story moved to Oz! Terry, the dog who (happily) ended up playing Toto, earned 2.5 times more money per week than each Munchkin.

The Tin Man’s oil was actually chocolate syrup, because it showed up on the Technicolor film better than actual oil! Similarly, gelatin powder was used to color the horses, which they enjoyed licking off. The snow in the poppy field was made from industrial grade asbestos. On the other hand, the cowardly lion’s costume was made from real lion skin, and wasn’t an imitation. We can’t imagine either of those last two production decisions being employed by a contemporary Hollywood film!

Some of the Wicked Witch of the West’s scenes were cut after the producers deemed them too scary for children. She’s actually in only twelve minutes of the movie! Margaret Hamilton reprised the role of the Wicked Witch in personal appearances and cameos for the rest of her career. Proving that the decades did nothing to blunt the Witch’s impact, her 1976 appearance on Sesame Street has only aired once, after parents complained to PBS and the producers that she’d frightened their children.

L. Frank Baum published seventeen sequels to his original novel. The movie suggests that Dorothy’s experiences were all a dream, but Baum created Oz as a real place that Dorothy and other characters would revisit in the sequels.

The most amazing thing that we learned, however, was that “Over the Rainbow” was very nearly cut from the film due to time constraints. Can you imagine a Wizard of Oz without this iconic song?

Are your children familiar with the movie? Gather your family, make some popcorn, and watch it together! Because your children will be obsessed afterwards, check out familycrafts.about.com for some super fun Wizard of Oz craft and activity ideas! Make your own character puppets, learn about the science behind tornadoes, and check out a map of Kansas to find Dorothy’s home. Hop over to www.care.com for some DIY costume instructions, because your little ones will love to act out the movie or just go everywhere dressed as their favorite character.

This Saturday, January 24 the Museum will be celebrating The Wizard of Oz with a full day of fun! Click here for more info!

Many thanks to Awesome Ariel Capellupo for all her help with research into the movie!

Sources: parade.com | www.moviemistakes.com | muppet.wikia.com

Kids Resolutions

Happy 2015! We’re half-way through the first month of a new year and this month is traditionally the perfect opportunity to try new things and improve on others. “New Year’s Resolutions and Kids: A different approach to traditional goal-setting” on mom.me is a great guide to opening up a discussion with your little ones, if you haven’t already. The article encourages posing questions to them such as:

• Am I a kind person?
• How do I treat my friends, siblings, people I don’t know?
• Are all people as lucky as I am?
• What should I be thankful for?
• What am I good at?
• What do I struggle at?

These questions will help them reflect on “who they are and who they want to be” and create self-awareness. This will help them learn about appreciation, empathy, and compassion.

Here are some ideas of little resolutions for youngsters, aka preschoolers:
-Clean up my toys after I play with them.
-Wash my hands after I use the bathroom.
-Play nicely with my brother/sister.

For children a little bit older:
-Always wear my helmet while riding my bicycle.
-Turn off the TV and read a book.
-Practice (my instrument, sport, etc.).
-Trade an unhealthy snack for a healthy one.
-Do my chores the first time I am asked.

We decided to ask some of our little guests at the Museum for their resolutions and they came up with some gems:
-Plant more flowers! (especially pink ones)
-Recycle (which is perfect for our new exhibit, Super Kids Saves the World)
-Hug mommy more!

You can even make this process into a craft project by helping your kiddos make their own vision boards! Cut out pictures from magazines and draw pictures illustrating the resolutions. Decorate with stickers and glitter, and then hang up the board as a fun reminder to keep up with the resolutions. This also makes for a great opportunity to have a talk about accepting setbacks, getting back on track, and rewarding yourself for sticking with it.

Photo Sources: Washing Hands | Planting | Cleaning Up

Christmas Around the World

You better watch out. You better not cry. Better not pout, I’m telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town! But he’s not just coming to Atlanta – Santa Claus is coming to towns all around the world.

To many of us, when we think of Christmas, we think of the festive season around December 25 celebrating the birth of Jesus, embellished with red and green decorations, beautifully wrapped presents, singing carols and of course Santa Claus. However, children around the world don’t all celebrate like we do. Some children don’t even celebrate Christmas on December 25th or with Santa Claus. Since Christmas is all about spreading joy to friends, family and even strangers, we thought it would be fun to highlight some of the ways children around the world celebrate Christmas.

So just like Santa Claus does on Christmas, let’s take a trip around the world and see how children celebrate around the globe!

In Italy, Santa Claus takes the form of an ugly but friendly witch named Befana who flies around on a broom on Christmas Eve and drops down chimneys to deliver presents to all the good children! The story behind this tradition is that Befana missed the night star that was to guide her to baby Jesus to deliver her gifts, so she flies around to every home on December 25th just in case Jesus is inside.

In the Netherlands, the most important days for presents are December 5 and 6, when Sinterklaas brings presents. Did you know that we actually get the name “Santa Claus” from the name “Sinterklaas”? Children leave clogs out by the fireplace and windows and sing Sinterklaas songs hoping to wake up the next morning with gifts in their shoes. Sometimes if you put hay and carrots in your clogs, they will be replaced with sweets, in addition to presents!

In Greece, instead of having a Christmas tree, many families will have a shallow wooden bowl with a wooden cross wrapped in basil hanging down. A small amount of water is kept in the bowl to keep the basil alive. Once a day for twelve days, someone will dip the cross and basil into water and use it to sprinkle holy water in each room to keep the “Killantzario,” or bad spirits, away. The bad spirits are thought to come into homes through the chimney, so having a fire burning though the twelve days of Christmas is also believed to help keep these bad spirits away.

In South Africa, the children are visited by Father Christmas, who visits homes and fills stockings with presents. Christmas occurs during the summer time in South Africa, so many families celebrate on the 25th and 26th with outdoor activities like camping and going to the beach. December 26 is called “Boxing Day” in South Africa and this is the holiday of outdoor relaxation.

Father Noel visits the children in Brazil and he comes dressed in silk because the weather is very warm in December. Father Noel is thought to come from Greenland, which is very close to the North Pole. Nativity scenes, midnight mass and huge fireworks take place in celebration of Christmas which continues until January 6th. That day is called “Three Kings Day” and three kings bring more gifts to the good children just like they did for Jesus’ birth.

Canadians share very similar traditions to the American Christmas but they also have a tradition of Masked Mummers, which is similar to the American holiday Halloween. Small groups of people visit neighborhoods during the 12 Days of Christmas ringing bells, making noise and asking for candy and treats.

Since weather in Australia is very hot in December, Santa Claus is known to change out of that heavy suit of his and throw on some red beach clothing and sunglasses. He also gives his reindeer a little break and is pulled through Australia by a special team of kangaroos, also called the “Six White Boomers” after a popular Australian Christmas carol. Just like many children in the United States, Australian children also write letters to Santa Claus with gift ideas and examples of how they have been good all year.

Learning about Christmas all around the world is a fun way to incorporate some new traditions into your holiday season! Maybe you and your family can take the countries of your heritage and learn how your ancestors celebrated the winter holidays.