UK Week

(side note: I have another 2-3 posts in the works as soon as the internet will cooperate and load pictures.  Keep checking back for new stuff in the next week or so!)

North America.... check.  South America... check.  As I started to plan for our unit on Europe I noticed a little problem.... they forgot the UK!  Well, not forgot completely, but it wasn't one of the 3-5 main countries we'd focus on.  Since we are on an international team and more than half of the expats in our little town hold British passports, we decided it was worth a bit extra planning.  Not to mention that we spent more than three weeks in the UK (London, Oxford and a little village in between!) in 2009 and have such fond memories of our time there.

My friend Cat helped me brainstorm some additional activities and we came up with some good stuff.  We had extra activities in geography, maths (yes, they use an [s], art, music, vocabulary, literature, and cooking.  Some of my favorites were the 34 terms we collected and made a matching game.  Things like the boot (trunk) or bonnet (hood) of the car.  Or plaiting (braiding) your hair. 

We picked a book by E. Nesbit as our read-aloud for the week.  The Railway Children.  Have you read it?  There's also a film (movie) to go with it.  So we planned a UK dinner-and-a-movie night.  Cat came over and helped Micaiah make Toad in the Hole (sausages cooked in a batter).  We filled out the meal with some mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, and baked beans.  They also made scones, which we served with jam for pudding (dessert).  It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed discussing some of the things we learned that week with all of our guests!  

The challenge spelling word we picked was "monarchy."  This was the sentence Olly and Cat helped us come up with. :)

Cat gave Micaiah some heart-shaped UK flag earrings.  Micaiah loved them!

Using scales to measure flour.  It's not a normal thing for Americans-- usually we use cups to measure flour, not grams or pounds. But it made for a very good math(s) lesson!

She loved mixing the scones dough with her hands!

A little light kneading... nothing this girly can't handle. :)

Working with Cat to make scones and Toad in the Hole.

Our UK night party with our friends in Mpanda.

This is what Toad in the Hole looks like.  It's normally made with proper sausages, but we substituted hot dogs... gotta make do with what we can find here!

-JLR