Helping Parents, Caregivers and Teachers Discover Quality Educational Kids Content.
Do you celebrate Kwanzaa? The week-long celebration of African-American culture, runs from December 26th to January 1st, with a feast on the 6th day. Red, black, or green candles are lit each night, to observe the 7 principles of Kwanzaa, which include unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.
Today is Pumpkin Pie Day. Try making one from your leftover Halloween pumpkin! Just kidding, those are all rotten! It’s easiest to use pumpkin in a can, to make a fresh-baked pie. It’s also A’phabet, or No “L” Day. The ABC’s, minus the L, is Noel, another name for Christmas!
Christmas tradition says a star overhead marked the location where Jesus was born. The Bible describes how wise men followed a star to Bethlehem. Some people think the star was really a UFO! They also think Jesus was an alien who could shift shapes. Whatever you believe, Happy Christmas!
A popular Christmas gift for kids years ago used to be a chemistry set. But those sets could be dangerous! They contained poisonous cyanide to dissolve gold, blowtorches to make glass test tubes, radioactive uranium to practice measuring radiation, and carcinogenic asbestos to dust for fingerprints. Now some chemistry sets don’t even contain chemicals!
Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, begins this evening. The Jewish holiday commemorates an ancient miracle in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. A one-day supply of oil lit a menorah, which is a type of candelabra, for 8 days. Hanukkah is celebrated for 8 days by lighting the menorah to prayers, songs, food, gifts and games.
Today is Christmas, a festival celebrated by billions of people to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. We don’t know the date Jesus was actually born, but Christmas has been December 25th since the year 336. It is marked with gift giving and Santa Claus, Christmas trees and lights, church services, songs and gatherings.
Deep on the floor of the ocean, seagrass meadows capture carbon, helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A small robot named Grasshopper, is helping to restore the underwater gardens, by planting seeds. Grasshopper can easily go where divers can’t. It hops from spot to spot, planting dozens of seagrass seeds per minute.
There have been plenty of Lunar rovers exploring the surface of the Moon, but for the first time, there will be a Lunar roo-ver. Australia is building its first Lunar rover, and naturally named it Roo-ver after the country’s iconic kangaroos. Roo-ver will join other rovers in a search for water and oxygen sources.
Everyone knows Santa’s sleigh, is pulled by reindeer. But did you know, that they’re all girls? Male reindeer shed their antlers in early December, so any reindeer that still have antlers on Christmas Eve, must be female. Of course, since they’re magical flying reindeer, I suppose it’s possible Santa’s crew doesn’t follow the rules.
Most of the time NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, is in charge of aerospace and maritime warning and control. But on Christmas Eve, NORAD tracks Santa Claus! They use radar, satellites, jet fighter escorts, and Santacams to get some pictures. Visit the noradsanta.org website to follow Santa’s travels around the world today!