Traveling Europe

As I mentioned before, this year we are doing a world geography focus for some of our school studies.  This particular curriculum focuses on one country a week and then suggests a weekly cultural focus night to celebrate/demonstrate some of what we've learned.  Our first continent is Europe and though we haven't done all of the celebrations, here are pictures from a few of the countries we've visited:

 This was our visit to Switzerland where we celebrated the end of winter, in good Swiss tradition.

  

 We made and ate "old man winter."  I was thinking as we made this how very loved we are because so many of the special touches were from people we love.  The chocolate chips in the cookie came from Grammy.  We can thank the Freelands for the Hershey Bar that serves as his bowtie.  A shout goes out to the Mangums who supplied the Hershey kiss eyes.  And, let's not forget the amazing buttercream icing which is in my recipe binder as "Laura Shaw's Icing Recipe."  Thanks for that contribution Ms. Shaw!

 We ran a "William Tell relay" and listened to the overture too.

In honor of the Netherlands, which we studied the same week, the kids found they had a shoe filled with little goodies.  The biggest hit (literally) was definitely the punching balloons we'd brought to use as stocking stuffers.  I didn't realize they'd never really had these before.  

 We visited France, complete with a view of the Eiffel Tower.

 We dined at a Parisian street cafe, complete with a four course meal.  (Don't tell my kids that their decorations look a little more like Luigi's Pizza Pit.)  You do what you can with what you have!

This last week, we studied Germany, the homeland of Fairy Tales.  The kids put on their own production of Hansel and Gretel.  Abby narrated, Lily was Gretel, Isaac was Hansel, and Lizzy had 3 costume changes.  I think she particularly shined in the part of the witch!

This may have been one of my favorite parts.  This was just after Gretel put the witch into the oven.  Which is really the wood cubby that provides a passageway from our pantry to our hearth.

Here's Lily presenting her project on Hansel and Gretel, which was her favorite of the three fairy tales she read that week.  She still hasn't recovered from Rumplestiltskin.  Apparently little men insisting on gold and speaking in riddle terrify her.  Who knew?

Our dinner that night consisted of soft pretzels, though I'm pretty sure the Germans don't cover theirs in pepperoni and parmesan to make them a "main course."

Here's Isaac presenting his composer report on Handel.  That guy was pretty interesting.