Pagan Parenting – Summer Solstice for Kids

As Christmas approaches everyone is focused on all things wintery, but here in Australia we are in the middle of (or in horrible towns like mine, just starting) a scorching hot summer, full of dry yellow grasses, hot winds and sneaky snakes.  So here are some kid friendly ideas of things to do and links to activities, crafts, recipes and more for the summer solstice.

Ruperts Tales

A favourite series of books for Pagan parents and children.  Ruperts tales is all about Rupert the rabbit and his own journey into learning all about Pagan things.  This is exactly the same list I shared in the Beltane post in October, since Litha is in the same books as Beltane.

The Wheel of the Year: Beltane, Litha, Lammas and Mabon.  In this tale Rupert adventures to discover why people are leaving their homes during the seasonal festivals.  He meets many new friends along the way.

Wheel of the Year Activity Book.  A companion to the two Wheel of the Year books, this one contains, obviously, activities.  Includes puzzles, games and colouring pages.

Various Links

• A Litha Story – by Pagan Dad
• General Litha Information – from Greenhaven
• Kids Ritual for Litha (adjust directions as needed) – by Pagan Dad
• Litha Printables – Little Pagan Acorns
• Midsummer Recipes, heaps of them – by Ravenna Angelline
• Litha Recipes – from Raven and Crone
• Litha Recipes – from Greenhaven

Summer Crafts

• Litha Crafts: Wreaths and Dreampillows – by Pagan Dad
• Meagans Summer Solstice story – by Kat Dyer
• Make a Pinwheel – First Palette
• Heaps of Summer Crafts – First Palette
• Litha Crafts for Kids – by Akasha at Wicca.com
• Make Mini Stonehenge – First Palette
• Make a Garden Stonehenge (that actually works with the sun) – from About Stonehenge
• Flower Crown – Nurture Store (it’s a craft not a product)
• Make a Suncatcher (links to 50 different tutorials) – The Artful Parent
• Sunflower Crafts – Crafty Morning
• Dried Orange Slices, they double as an Xmas craft! – Our Little House in the Country
• Gods Eye Sun – Naturally Educational

Learn About Axial Tilt

The Solstices and Equinoxes are perfect times to look at why we have these particular days – and yes, doing this more than once is perfectly fine, we all forget things over time.  So if you haven’t don’t so this year, or your kids have forgotten already, then this solstice is the perfect time to look into things like axial tilt.

Kids Geo – The Day the Sun Stands Still (northern perspective, but still good).

Teacher Visions – Videos about the solstice, three in all, for different age groups.  Also probably northern perspective.

Bushfire Safety

Although not technically anything to do with the summer solstice or Paganism or anything like that, here in Aus we are coming up for that time of year when everything around us will burn to ashes.  So this is a good time to get ready for that and to teach our kids about bushfires and how to keep safe from them.  This is especially important for people who live in rural areas like I do.

• Some printables and activities – from the Vic CFA
• An entire website on bushfire safety
• Disaster Resilience Education for Schools – this is a pack that is sent out to schools by request, it’s a fairly basic thing, a folder full of informational stuff, booklets and a dvd, about all sorts of disasters including bushfires.  It is available to homeschoolers, I asked, I have one.  Just email the address given through the link and ask for it.
• Mow your lawns, get rid of all the weeds and scrap woods (kids can help with that) and make a bushfire plan.  Even if you don’t expect to use it, it’s still a good activity for kids to get into.

Other Ideas

• Gather and dry or press some summer herbs and flowers, red bottlebrush should be blooming now, I think it’s a perfect symbol of summer.
• Have a picnic! Especially one with lots of summer fruits
• Go to the beach, obviously
• Go camping
• Have a BBQ, also obvious
• Do some gardening
• Go on a nature walk if you can, especially good if you can end up at a creek or river for a swim
• Decorate the house with fresh picked native flowers, or if you can’t get any, make some paper ones.
• Dance and sing
• Make a fairy house and/or garden.  Google and Pinterest will bring you so many ideas for this one, I can’t possibly link to anything.
• After dark take a walk and look at Christmas lights (yes, I said Christmas lights).

You might also take a look at the similar post I did for Beltane back in October, I copied over some of the ideas to this post but to be honest, a lot of the things we do for Beltane can be carried over to summer.  Hopefully all of this is helpful, and whatever you choose to do, have a great solstice!