Learn about the Aztec for Aztec New Year

Did you know that March 12 is considered the Aztec New Year? The holiday is still celebrated by some in Mexico, and even if you don’t have another New Year’s celebration to mark the occasion, it’s a fine time to learn about the Aztec.

The Aztec were the dominant culture in Mesoamerica (that’s the land from Northwest Mexico to current day El Salvador) before the Spanish colonizers came. In their own time they were known as Mexica or Tenochca, with the name Aztec being popularized in the 1800s. About 300,000 people lived in the capital of Tenochtitlan at its peak, making it one of the biggest cities in the world at the time. Tenochtitlan was located where Mexico City is today.

Words like chocolate, tomato and avocado are all derived from the Aztec language of Nahuatl. Some of their farming techniques are still used in Mexico, and their legal system is similar to that still used today. The symbol of the eagle eating a snake while sitting on a cactus, which is on Mexico’s flag, is a symbol the Aztec said was sent from the gods.

You can learn more basic facts about them from this page at Primary Topic Shop, or from National Geographic Kids.

Woo Jr also has some good information about the Aztec, including a sun stone activity, worksheets to use for learning about important animals, how to make chocolate and more.

123 Homeschool 4 Me has lots of great resources on the Aztec, including a printable reader with pictures for kids to color, printable worksheets and notebooking pages and a banner activity where kids can share what they learn about temples, clothing and other facts.

Learn some basic Aztec vocabulary at Storyboard That, and learn about Aztec codices (symbols to represent numbers and letters) and practice translating them with this activity from Teaching Ideas.

And you can learn more about Aztec New Year from Calpulli Tonalehqueh, a group in San Jose, California, where the oldest and largest Mexica New Year celebration in the United States is held. There’s a video there to show you a bit of what their celebration looks like.

To download these coloring sheets right click and save the image.

If it’s hot where you live, you might be looking for some fun activities you can do with kids inside the house. And while bubbles are generally a strictly outside the house kid of activity, these special bubbles are ones you can play with inside. It’s both a lot of fun and a science lesson.

These bubbles aren’t blown into the air, you blow them onto a tabletop gently through a straw.

What’s really cool about them is that they will stay on the table top without popping. You can even blow another bubble inside the first bubble, or stack bubbles on top of each other.

Why does this work? It’s thanks to a special ingredient in the bubble solution: sugar.

This particular recipe is from Play Party Game, but I’m sure you can find it other places with similar ingredients as well. But this post has a good explanation for what is normally happening with regular bubble solution made mostly with just soap and water, as well as why the sugar helps to make bubbles stronger and helps them last longer.

You could make this into a full on science experiment for your kids, comparing regular bubbles (this time you’ll want to do it outside or somewhere easy to clean) to the “unbreakable” bubbles, letting them hypothesize about what ingredients might help make bubbles stronger or what the sugar does to the solution.

You can talk about the molecular structure of the bubble being altered by the sugar, which makes it stronger and longer lasting.

They even have an activity kit you can buy to help guide your explorations and that offers extension activities for you to try.

Or you could just play with them. No judgement here; it’s summertime.

Grab the recipe and more of the science behind the bubbles from Play Party Game. And while you’re playing with bubbles you can also check out my giant bubble solution recipe over at Our Daily Craft.

[Photo: Play Party Game]

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