Tanabata festival, also known as The Star Festival is celebrated in Japan every year on the 7th day of the 7th month (July 7th). The reason for this day as legend says is because it is when the two stars Orihime and Hikoboshi were reunited in the night sky. We have just released a new magnetic legend to retell the love story of the two stars, you can grab this from our website now.
The Tanabata festival is full of colour and one tradition on this day is for people to write their wishes on colourful strips of paper called tanzaku. After writing their wishes, people hang their tanzaku on bamboo branches. This is a great activity to try in your centre or school and hang them from a tree in your garden. Encourage the children to write or draw their wishes on colourful strips of paper, you could use these pre-coloured pieces in the freebie or set up an art activity for the children to create their own from scratch!
