In Canada, on the Monday before May 25th each year there is a celebration. This holiday is to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria who was born on May 24, 1819.

Growing up in Canada we sang this little ditty: “The twenty fourth of May is the Queen’s Birthday, if we don’t get a holiday we will all run away.”
Depending on where you live in Canada, if the weather will be good, families like to get together to go camping. After a long, cold winter, people are anxious to get out and go up in the mountains or hills and set up their tents to camp.

Some craft supplies are always good to take on a camp-out, and here are some basics that don’t take up much space: permanent marker, some acrylic paints and paintbrushes, good glue, large and small goggle eyes, paper bags, some yarn scraps, rope or string.

As soon as we could, we would find a long branch or stick on the ground, which we would use for our Hiking Stick. We would try to strip off the bark and to make it shiny and smooth, but then we liked to carve designs into it to personalize it. By winding the rope or string around the top four or five inches of the stick we made it nice to hold on to, but it also gave us the opportunity to have some strings hang down which we could tie little twigs, pine-cones, or other nature things we found.

As we hiked around we would keep on the lookout for rocks. We could use the rocks to make a Rock Family Plaque, or some pet rocks. For the family plaque we needed to collect small, oval rocks; one for each member of the family. We would try to find an interesting piece of wood about 4 inches by 6 inches. Then we choose a rock for each member of the family, glue their eyes in place, maybe a tuft of hair or some other identifying feature, then glue the family to the wood. With the marker write your family name, and the date of this camp-out.

To make Pet Rocks let the kids chose several colors to paint their rocks. Then they can add goggle eyes and yarn hair, to make each one a totally original creation. They need to take care of their pet for the rest of the camping trip.

Crafting while camping is great fun because the cleanup is minimal, because kids don’t want to be totally clean when they are living outdoors for a few days.

Firecracker Day

Here is another fun thing to do on this holiday, which is sometimes called Firecracker Day. It is easy and fun to craft with your children as you help them make their own fireworks picture. You will need a piece of black or very dark construction paper for each child doing this project. Glitter and white glue are also needed. If you have several colors of glitter that makes it look real nice, but it is also beautiful with just one color of glitter if that is what you have on hand.

Spread lots of newspaper out on the table or work area. Then place the construction paper on top of the newspaper. Pour a blob of glue about the size of a quarter on the paper. Try using a straw to blow the edges of glue out from the blob. Or use the straw to drag glue out from the straw like streamers from fireworks.

Using one color of glitter pour some onto the glue area, shake it around, and then pour what is left back into the bottle of glue. Now do this again with a different color of glitter.

You may want to add some additional streams of light in this new color on the firework that you did a few minutes ago. Do this for several more additions to your picture. Always be sure to return the unused glitter to the correct bottle. Let this project completely dry before hanging for display.