This is festival time of year in Dallas Fort Worth! The weather isn’t too hot yet so it’s still
nice to get out and enjoy the warm spring sunshine and take in a festival or
two.
While a festival isn’t a museum, there is still a lot your
children can learn at festivals. No festival is complete without food! For kids of any age, tasting new foods is a good
way to broaden their taste buds and hopefully make them less picky eaters. For the youngest children they still love to
put things in their mouth so taste testing can satisfy this need.
Cultural festivals
are an excellent way to expose your child to new and different cultures. Take
advantage of this fun teaching opportunity to educate your child on the customs
and traditions of other cultures. Observing native costumes on display, listening
to native music, participating in native crafts and sampling native food are
all ways to engage your child while learning and having fun.
A few upcoming cultural festivals are: (1) Many Cinco de
Mayo festivals this week-end, (2) Asian Festival May 17, (3) Polka Festival May
23 – 25, (4) Scottish Festival & Highland Games May 2 – 4.
Arts Festivals
lend themselves to creative expression and oftentimes will have a Kids Corner
where kids can create their own works of art. Art allows kids to see things
from different perspectives, building important life skills. Art also enables
kids to get in touch with and express their emotions.
Upcoming Arts Festivals include: (1) Cottonwood
Arts Festival May 3 -4. And (2) Wildflower Arts & Music Festival May 16 –
18.
Many festivals will include petting zoos or other
opportunities where children can interact with animals. Most kids love
animals. Interacting with animals
encourages empathy, a much needed skill you can’t take a test to learn.
Even playing “carnival” type games at festivals teaches your
kids skills. Some encourage athletic
skills (basketball dunking, target practice), others may encourage math
(angles, probability) but all require your child to learn about money. Take
this opportunity to ask your younger kids how much is fifty cents? (i.e. two
quarters) or figure out how many tickets you need to purchase to play a certain
game.
So there you have it! You’ve been teaching your child all
along by attending festivals and just didn’t know it!
Enjoy your festivals!
If you’d like more information on what you can teach your
child when you go places, check out my new book, Kidding Around Town. Included
as a resource in the book is a handy list of year-round festivals in Dallas
Fort Worth with a pricing guide.
