Columbus Day Crafts

Columbus Day 2014

Since our children get Columbus Day off of from school each year (because of teacher in-service) we get to spend the day together as a family, crafting and playing with friends.

In the past, we have built ships, painted ocean voyage scenes, baked, and made maps--always with the same set of neighbors from our old neighborhood across the street.  Every October, I also like to read this book with my children: "The Voyage of Christopher Columbus, In His Own Words."  I always like to hear things straight from the horse's (or the explorer's) mouth, and this pop-up book is really interesting for kids to discover.

For this year's craft, we made pumpkin globes, which was so much fun, albeit a little messy!  (We found this idea for pumpkin geography on the NEA website.)

We started with smallish, roundish pumpkins,

and drew outlines of the continents, as best we could, using permanent markers.

Then, we painted the oceans blue.

And after letting the oceans dry (with a little help from my new hair dryer!), we painted the continents different colors.

You can label the continents after the paint dries.  We didn't really get around to it.

It's fun to watch the kids grow through the years as I look at photos from Columbus days past.

And this was a really fun project.  Pair it with Nephi's vision of Columbus and other "gentiles" who came to this Promised land and this activity could make for a very interesting and important family home evening discussion. (You might also want to read: 1 Ne. 13:12 and the Ensign article Columbus and the Hand of God.)

When we were done, we decided to do one more monumental task...we harvested the pumpkin that we grew together this summer!  Guy did the honors!

We're so proud of our pretty pumpkin!!  Hope you have a great day!