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.

Egyptian Dig

Jayne really enjoyed November's Little Passports package! He got Egypt and Sam and Sophia sent him a pyramid excavation kit. I have seen these in the store before and thought it might be a 5 minute project. As it turns out, it took us about 30 minutes to dig out the little quarter sized trinket. Those little buggers are really hard and the tools that come with it are not designed for cracking it at all. We had so much fun working on it though and by the end all 3 of us were digging at it, between photos. Little guy was so proud of our effort when he was finally holding his mini Sphinx!

Daddy gets a turn

It is getting smaller at this point and I am trying to get a large chunk off since we know where the trinket is at this point.

Little Guy with his Sphinx!

Oh What a Week

Sewing his pouch pocket

A fun week, that is! Our school week has been just great. We did an especially large amount of hands on activities this week and that may have been a part of it. We learned all about living in medieval times, castles, bathrooms, food and the like. He always wants to know about the bathrooms each time period uses and he has yet to be disappointed by the information. Jayne even got to try his hand at swing his own pouch (pocket) like they used to wear.

In science we spent a lot of time learning about the ocean. We learned about waves, the tide, and coasts. Jayne saw a glimpse of how waves work when we made a wave bottle. He also got to see how things freeze and melt. We put some fun stuff n the ice tray in the freezer and some ice cubes insulated and not insulated mugs.

The wave bottle

Our little Passports came in this week too. Sam and Sophia went to Japan this month. Jayne got a little sushi eraser and an origami set. We made a book all about Japan and spent a lot of time folding paper.

Origami galore! You can tel which is mine by drawing ability only.

This week we finished reading Th Hundred Dresses. This book did not keep Little Guy's attention like the last 2 books did, but t did teach some great lessons that we have already been able to apply in real life. We will be reading The Family Under the Bridge next. This should be good! I just hope it draws him in better than the last one.

Passport is Here

Jayne's first month of Little Passports has arrived! It came much faster than expected, arriving before we start school. The look on his face when he saw he had a package was priceless.He was a bit disappointed to find out it was not a toy. I don't know why he seems to think he should be getting piles of toys in the mail. We certainly haven't given him any reason to think that. We read the letter from Sam and the excitement was back. Especially when he found out that he would get a package every month.



Checking out all that is inside.

The most exciting task f decorating the suitcase with stickers.

He had to lay out everything for his daddy to see.

He will be needing help with the activity sheets and online activities since he is not a strong reader yet, but he is looking forward to it and so am I!