We studied about Great Britain while in Lake Tahoe, CA on vacation from our vacation. . . because I'm crazy. But really, I knew we'd have to spend a lot of time in the hotel room with a napping baby so I prepared with some "quiet" activities. Plus, we would have Grandpa as a resource to talk about his missionary experiences in England and tell stories about our British ancestors. Which is what we did for FHE along with our "friend" from the Friend magazine.
Tea Party with herbal tea and Scottish "scotty" shortbread cookies
We made tea cups out of half a plastic egg, button, and ribbon
We recreated Stonehenge using sand from the Lake Tahoe beach
Crafts included melty bead British flags (a huge hit!), a coat of arms, and Queen Elizabeth, Paddington Bear, and the Loch Ness Monster puppets. We compared the Loch Ness Monster to Tahoe Tessie. We never saw her though! While doing our crafts we listened to the Beatles and bagpipes. Thank you, Pandora!
Croquet anyone?
Here are just a few of the movies we watched (remember: lots of quiet time in a hotel room):
Valiant, Great Mouse Detective, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Wallace and Gromit, Robin Hood, Sword and the Stone, and our favorite YouTube "Girls of the World".
Our food choices were limited in Lake Tahoe but we managed to scrounge up English muffins with lemon curd, Cadbury chocolate, and fish and chips. That's probably the only British food we would want to eat anyway! No haggis, thank you very much!
Summer is here and it's time to go around the world! Our first stop--Sweden (via California where we're visiting family). Unfortunately, I wasn't quite back in the swing of things and didn't take many pictures or record the books we read and movies we watched, so here's the abbreviated version.
We couldn't visit Sweden without a trip to Ikea. I don't shop at Ikea often and every time I do, I wonder why I don't. The place is amazing! We had lunch in the cafeteria and it was divine: Swedish Meatballs with lingonberry jam, lingonberry soda and we had to try Swedish chocolate. Delish! Ikea has and adorable kid care center. Why can't every store have one? Only problem--Sabrina was too short by a half inch. Dragging her through Ikea was not so fun.The kids center should be made for kids her size. Plus they have like a one hour time limit. Definitely not long enough to do some serious shopping. Sorry Ikea, but you need to adjust that. Anyway, so many amazing things and I could have done some serious damage if I wasn't on vacation. And bonus: they have a food area where I stocked up on tons of Swedish food so I wouldn't have to make it myself (since I was on vacation). Cookies, candy, lingonberry everything--score!
We learned about the Northern Lights but our finger printing craft was a bust. I thought I would save money and make my own finger paint. It didn't show up on the paper, cracked and flaked off and made the paper curl terribly. I couldn't even get a picture of the finished product. Too bad because t could have turned out really pretty! But it made for some messy fingers! We did listen to some cool music while painting, "Above the Northern Lights" by Mannheim Steamroller, "Aurora Borealis" by Steven Price, and "Aurora Borealis" by Rojo. Thank you Spotify!
Messy Fingers
Of course we read Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren (check out this awesome version illustrated by Lauren Child of Charlie and Lola fame) and watched the movie that I loved as a kid. It definitely could use a remake though!
Pippi Hair (Sabina's hair turned out the best, of course)
We fell in love the Girls of the World series on You Tube. We learned about life in the Swedish countryside on Kid World Citizen. I think I love Sweden. It's the first country that we've studied that I thought it might be really cool to live there (or at least visit).
