World Travels: Australia

G'day Mate!

Our last adventure was very dry in the desert, but this time we found ourselves wet, wet, wet! We landed our balloon in Australia. Not on the western side, because that is mostly desert and we had just come from one of those. We landed on the eastern side of the country where most of the people live. Did you know that Australia is a country and a continent?

We met a visitor to the eastern shore, Adam. He was about to head out into the water to explore the Great Barrier Reef. Adam invited us to go with him and we couldn't resist. We rode with him on a boat to get to the reef.

We snorkeled in the water. It is kind of like swimming with a giant straw in your mouth so you can keep breathing while you swim. Delbert took a huge breath and swam 35 feet under the surface to see the sharks, but I liked staying near the top. The sharks in the reef were very friendly and safe to swim with. We saw a lot of beautiful and big fish. After a while a deadly water snake came along and we all had to get out of the water. 

We had a great time exploring with Adam. We even found some itty bitty fish toys to play with as we float away to our next great adventure. See you then!

Mister's own dad went to this country so we already have some fun stuff to play with. We have a bull whip, an alligator skin bracelet, and a boomerang. We are still getting a fun goody for him too though and we are sticking to our squinkie theme because he just loves them and he uses the zinkies a lot for math. He will also get to hear lots of stories from his daddy's trip. We will only have our Amazon Prime membership for 1 more week, so we may not get any videos in. He will have a blast tossing the boomerang around and hearing lots of stories though.

The picture this month is from here: http://madasamarinebiologist.com/post/35278601428/scinerds-coral-autopsy-reveals-great-barrier
Poor Adam didn't get a single good shot on his trip of the reef.

World Travels: Saudi Arabia

Hello!

This month we landed somewhere very hot! We landed at the edge of an ocean of sand called The Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia. We met an Arab boy named Fadil. He came with his camel to see our balloon. 

Fadil brought us to his home at Al-Khamasin. There were even more camels there because this is an important area of the country for raising them. We visited with Fadil's family and told them about our adventures so far. They told us some wonderful folk tales from Saudi Arabia. 

When it was time to leave, Fadil gave us a book to read during our long days of flying in our balloon, 1001 Arabian Nights. We can't wait to read some more of their fantastic folk tales! 

Till next month,

The photo from this month is from this site: http://americanbedu.com/2011/11/02/saudi-arabia-how-empty-is-the-%E2%80%9Cempty-quarter%E2%80%9D/

This month I decided to browse some goodies and let them inspire the month. Mister has developed a love for Squinkies and when I saw this Aladdin themed set (which is also not ultra girly, yay) I knew I needed to look into Saudi Arabia. 

The middle east is a rocky topic for many people, but they are still people just like us and with interesting geography. We shouldn't let the bad news broadcasts sway our thinking of an entire people group. They never share the good things happening in a country after all. Soooo anyway...back to geography...

Our goodies this month are the Squinkie set shown above and a Children's version of Arabian Nights.

I also found this show that is free to watch with Amazon Prime, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations which has an episode on cuisine from Saudi Arabia. We will probably have to watch the Disney Aladdin too.

I would love to hear what you added to your Saudi Arabian studies this month! Just share in the comments.

World Travels: Ireland

Hello!

The wind blew us to Ireland this month! We landed at the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs overlook the Atlantic Ocean. There were so many birds! The sea birds make their homes in the cliff face.

While we were in Ireland we learned all about Saint Patrick. He was brought to Ireland as a slave, escaped, and then came back to share his love of Jesus with the Irish people. It is an exciting story from the history of Ireland and Christianity. 

We had a lot of fun exploring this beautiful island and found a lucky four leaf clover. We look forward to sharing our next stop with you too!

If you are sharing with your kiddos this month, it is perfect timing! Ireland is a great topic for March and learning about St. Patrick. Here are some things we will be doing to add depth to our letter...

The Cliffs of Moher has a fantastic website, complete with virtual tour. I plan to do that with little guy and this is the address: http://www.cliffsofmoher.ie/default.aspx

I am ordering a fun clover cutter as his special gift. At $8.63  (on Amazon) it is still far less than the $15 I was spending on Little Passports, in case any of you are keeping track. We will use it to make quesadillas for St Patrick's day with green tortillas, of course.

We will be reading about St. Patrick in I Heard Good News Today which was a part of our Sonlight curriculum. We use this book sparingly as Little Guy doesn't like to read it much.

Man V Wild has an Ireland episode, SCORE! We did one of these with the Guatemala lesson and  Little Guy still talks about Guatemala. It really brought the lesson to life for him, so I will use these as much as I can!

I hope you are all enjoying my World Travels series so far! We certainly are. If you would love to see a favorite country or share a country you have visited, let me know in the comments section. The next 3 months are covered and then any locale is fair game!

World Travels: The Netherlands

Hello!

We flew to the most amazing place this month! I said, "Delbert, we have to land there and see what that is!" Below the ground was striped with every color of the rainbow, reds, blues, yellows and more. What could have possibly caused these fantastic stripes?

When we landed, Delbert and I saw that they were giant fields of Tulips. The were so beautiful and there were so many! In the distance we could see a tall windmill. It did not look like the white, sleek windmills we are used to in the USA. We had landed in The Netherlands. The family that runs the farm brought us a picnic lunch with tasty Edam cheese and homemade bread. Yum! 

We will talk to you again next month!

Image via pintrest. Original link: http://katieinluxembourg.blogspot.com/2011/04/saturday-1530.html

This month is all about The Netherlands, mostly because little guy wants to know more about the place we are considering making our home. There are some really amazing shots of the fields if you want to share more with your kiddos, on pintrest. Just search: The Netherlands Tulips.

I am ordering this windmill kit as our gift from Delbert and Dinah. Cost is  currently $9.56 which is way under the $15 we spent on Little Passports before. I got it here: http://www.amazon.com/Green-Science-Windmill-Generator-Toysmith/dp/B0016PBH9Q/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1360375777&sr=8-7&keywords=windmill

Burt Wolf Holland and Belgium is a very nice tour of the area and is available on Amazon Prime. I recommend  previewing any documentaries you show your kids before showing them. Amsterdam is very well known for it's less family oriented virtues, but this video shows all there is to truly love about the country, including some interesting history. 

e2 design Season 2, Ep. 5 "Adaptive Reuse in the Netherlands"

is another interesting Documentary about architecture. We won't be watching it again with little guy, because e2 is just not his cup of tea.

World Travels: Guatemala

Hello!

Dinah and I enjoyed our first trip on the hot air balloon so much! It was amazing seeing the earth from so high up. We floated through the sky for a very long time, going wherever the wind blew. When we were ready to touch ground we found a perfect break in the trees. 

We couldn't believe where we landed! There were old stone buildings all around us. Lots of people were walking around looking at them. A girl named Nicole came to see our balloon and told us we were at the ruins of a Mayan village in Guatemala. She showed us around the ruins. We climbed many, many stairs and saw lots of carvings in the rocks too. The Mayans even had a ball court because they liked to play sports too!

Nicole was a tourist visiting Guatemala  She had seen many markets and had even gotten to see were they grow coffee beans, bananas and cocoa beans. She even gave us some of the bananas she got straight from the tree! She shared some fresh chocolate with us too. Our trip to the Mayan ruins was incredible, and we made a new friend too! We'll write to you again soon!

Photo of Tikal from Nicole

We are going to work this into our geography/history study of the mountains. I am going to put a banana and a bar of chocolate in his package this month. I downloaded Google Earth, so we will check out Guatemala on there. We will be reading the mountain section of the book Wild Places.

Also, we'll be watching several videos about Guatemala and the Mayan people that are available for free on Amazon Prime Instant Video.

Guatemala Episode

Lost King of the Maya and Maya Lords of the Jungle

Passport to Adventure: Guatemala's Dramatic Lake Atitlan Region

World Travels: Introduction

Welcome to the first installment of World Travels! This all came about from our desire to do Little Passports, but with more freedom as to what countries we learn about and when. I am posting some of the material on the blog so that others can also enjoy the work I put into them. They might as well get more use than just one use at our house. The "packages" I send my little guy will include a letter from Delbert and Dinah, a photo, a flag sticker from the country they are visiting for his passport, and some fun souvenirs. If you haven't done anything like this before, you should know that we also have a map to locate the country, a small suitcase to put all these goodies in, and a play passport. Those would be great items to add to this first package. My normal set up will be letter first, then the picture, then notes about what we are doing such as souvenirs, activities, ect. My little guy already knows we are doing this and has the basics from his Little Passports from the past few months, so the letter is all he will be getting this time around.


Hello!

My name is Delbert. My good friend Dinah got a very special Christmas gift this year, a hot air balloon! Can you believe it? It is beautiful, with gold, red, and black stripes. Dinah had a great idea of how to use her special gift. I bet you can't wait to hear her idea! Well, she thought we should travel the world in her balloon. I thought it was a great idea and said yes right away.

I came up with a great idea of my own too. I knew we would learn so many new things about lots of countries we have never seen. Then I thought we should share. We thought long and hard about who we should share our adventures with, and we thought of you!

Dinah and I are going to have so much fun traveling all over the world in the hot air balloon. We hope that you have fun learning along with us too. I will write again soon when we land in our first country!

Balloon photo © Walleyelj | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

DIY Little Passports

Adam came up with the idea first and I loved it, then stressed about it, then hated it, then it really grew on me... I'm confusing, I know! We have been getting little passports in the mail for a few months now and Little Guy just loves it. We like it too, don't get me wrong, but for the $15 we are paying each month for the 2 year subscription we feel like we could do better. So the idea was this, let's make our own! I loved the idea, because we could do much cooler souvenirs and relate them to people that we know who have been there too. We could also go anywhere and better form them to what we are learning about. The part that stressed me out was that it meant doing a ton of research and writting the letters on top of everything a homeschool mom already does, I did not like that at all. Today I realized that I know a lot of people who have been to other countries. With their help I would have a launching point to write the letters and any kind of idea what kind of souvenirs to put with it.

So here is the grand idea I have come up with today! With the help of friends, family, and anyone who wants to collaborate on this, I will right the letters and share them on the blog. Anyone who wants to print them out and make their own for their kids can do that. I will have to come up with the story line, ect. because I don't want to outright steal the work of the Little Passports people, they do a great job. I'm not sure where it will lead at this point, but I am excited to get into it!