Father Frost - Christmas Around the World for Kids - Russia
This is the sixth activity in our Christmas Around the World for Kids series! Today, we're looking at Father Frost, a tradition in Russia!
Russia is a large country in the northern hemisphere:
New Years in Russia is a bigger part of the holiday season than Christmas, and "Father Frost" visits children on New Year's Eve with gifts. He also looks a lot like "Santa," and usually visits with his granddaughter:
Father Frost's official name is Ded Moroz and his granddaughter, the Snow Maiden, is named Snegurochka. Ded Moroz wears a long fur coat and traditional Russian boots, has a long white beard, and walks with a long magical staff. He often rides a troika, which is a traditional Russian sleigh pulled by three horses. The Snow Maiden usually wears blue robes and helps her grandfather.
Father Frost and his granddaughter often visit holiday parties, pass out gifts, and sometimes even dramatize chasing Baba Yaga (who might steal gifts and eat children) away!
Since Father Frost is magical and can control ice, I decided we'd do an ice experiment to celebrate this tradition! (I debated doing more gifts on New Year's Eve, but decided we already have more than enough gifts this holiday season! But if YOU want to do more gifts again, go for it!)
I pulled out one of our most popular ice experiments:
Ice Experiment for Christmas Around the World for Kids - Russia:
Supplies:
** Ice cubes
** Salt
** Food coloring
** Pipettes
Process:
1- Sprinkle salt over the ice cubes! Wait a moment and see if you can see where the ice melts.
2- Add a drop or two of food coloring to the top of the ice cube, and watch it travel down the paths made by the melting ice!
3- Experiment by repeating 1 & 2!
Explanation (ideal for elementary and middle school ages): Salt lowers the freezing point of water. Normally water freezes at 32 degrees F, but when you add salt it needs to get even colder to freeze! The salt makes the ice it touches melt faster than the ice that doesn't have any salt on it. This creates cool tunnels for the food coloring to travel through!
** Tip: Instead of using straight food coloring, add a few drops of food coloring to a small cup or beaker of water. Use a pipette to drip it onto the ice! I also like to put markers that are mostly dried out in water. The rest of the dye in the marker will color the water!
After we finished experimenting, we put our Russia "stamp" in our "passports!"
Our homeschool is learning about Christmas around the world this year with 12 different activities--this was our sixth one! I would LOVE if you joined us!! I will be linking all the activities to THIS PAGE, so you can pick and choose which to do. There's also a link to get the passport that I made there (for free) and a giveaway that will run from December 1st-16th! And, I'll be linking to a new Christmas Around the World for Kids activity each week day until all 12 are up!
And if you're looking for more homeschool unit studies, be sure to check out our growing collection here!
Happy Educating,
Carla & the kids who don't sit still!
0 comments