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Yeay! We finally were in DC at the right time and were able to visit the Cherry Blossom Festival!

Too bad the weather didn’t cooperate, though. I thought we could beat it, but the rain started about halfway through our visit.

If you have kids and get a chance to visit the Cherry Blossom Festival, be sure to see if the Park Rangers are doing a kids activity tent again! Our girls had a blast, and there were about twelve different activities to choose from.

First, we colored pictures of the four stages of the cherry blossom blossoming.

Then, because my girls love anything have to do with glue, we created our own “cherry blossoms.” This is easy to replicate at home, you just need glue and pink tissue paper!

We also did a leaf rubbing and colored pictures on a “friendship mural.”

My girls’ ultimate favorite part? Once you completed four different activities, you could find a park ranger, who would then administer an “oath” (which consisted of promising not to pick the cherry blossoms, really), and then give them Junior Park Ranger Badges! You should have seen them; their eyes got so huge, and you could tell that they were taking their oath very seriously! They wore their badges with pride for the rest of the day!

And here are a few activities we didn’t do for lack of time. But I wanted to include them for you here, in case you want to celebrate your own Cherry Blossom Festival at home!

Description: Japanese Paper Lantern

Directions: Japanese Paper Lantern

Kokeshi Dolls

Directions:

Planting seeds

Cherry Blossom History Hunt Quiz:

  1. Who first signed a treaty to build a relationship with Japan?
  2. When did the cherry trees come to America?
  3. What two events both happened in 1885 in the National Mall area?
  4. How many trees were burned because they were diseased?
  5. After the trees were burned, how long before healthy trees were planted?
  6. The building of what memorial caused protest in 1938? What were they protesting?
  7. What did Japan give the United States as a present in 1954?
  8. Who led the famous March on Washington two years before Lady Bird Johnson began planting more cherry trees?
  9. How many trees did Lady Bird Johnson plant?
  10. What event on the National Mall occurred from 1986-1988?

If you would like more information about the Cherry Blossoms trees in DC or the Cherry Blossom Festival, be sure to visit the National Park Service’s website.