For our study of Ukraine we engaged in fire jumping. Kupala is an ancient pagan ritual for summer solstice that has been adopted into the Orthodox Christian calender as a feast of John the Baptist. For Kupala young people would often jump over a fire. In my search of fun activities associated with Ukraine, fire jumping seemed to be a good fit. Of course I wouldn’t have my boys jump over an actual fire so we built a “fire” out of large cardboard blocks
The boys took turns jumping over the “fire.” Sometimes they made it and sometimes they didn’t. We had to rebuild the “fire” several times.
The fire jumping was practice for our great feast day coming up. In about 10 days we plan to wrap up our study of the country of Ukraine with Ukrainian food, games, and costumes.
