Lake County kids celebrate New Year around the world

Children counted down from 10 and watched a silver ball rise to the ceiling before throwing streamers into the air Wednesday in early celebration of the New Year.

It was the culmination of the Ring in the New Year program at the Lake County Discovery Museum at Lakewood Forest Preserve near Wauconda.

The annual program helps kids celebrate the New Year with traditions from around the world, said Museum Educator Jennifer Hart.

"We hand out streamers, and they get really excited when we do the ball drop," she said. "It is a nice, fun activity that they can do that they don't have to stay up really late for."

Kids made paper flowers to represent Brazil, colored paper rangoli for the Festival of Lights in India, used pastels on black paper to make fireworks from South Korea and wrote words of wishes as tradition in the Czech Republic.

And for the United States, they colored Times Square Ball decorations before ushering in the New Year at noon.

"It was great. I've never come to this one before. The twins liked the ball raising the best, the countdown and throwing the streamers," Lisa Beake of Round Lake said as she watched her 4-year-old twins, Hanna and Hope, celebrate.