Around the World Part IV

 Adley and I added two more countries to her Around the World booklet at the end of the summer. We are both learning so much through these adventures!

INDIA

Adley used watercolor to decorate the flag of India.

Then, we played a matching game with various symbols and landmarks from India (the bengal tiger, the peacock, the lotus flower, the Taj Mahal, a mango, an Indian elephant, and the country outline).

Adley's next activity involved the Taj Mahal. She decorated this printout of the famous landmark using warm colored dot painters.

The background was supposed to be done in all cool colors, creating a stand-out effect for the Taj Mahal. Unfortunately, several of Adley's cool-colored dot painters have dried out, so the craft didn't quite have the full intended effect. It still looked fairly neat, though, and served the purpose of teaching Adley about this famous Wonder of the World.   

India is full of unique culture. Adley and I talked briefly about Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. We learned that during this festival, women and young girls make intricate rangoli designs in their courtyards or homes using colored sand or rice powder. We admired some beautiful rangoli designs online, and then Adley made her own. We started by using food coloring to dye salt. Then, Adley used the colored salt to decorate a rangoli design template we had found online.

So pretty!

Also during Diwali, Indians set out rows of diya lamps outside their homes, so Adley and I tried our hand at making a diya lamp. This project took several days. We started by making salt dough, forming it into two tear drop lamp shapes, and baking the dough.

After the dough was fully cooled and dried, Adley painted designs on the lamps.

Finally, once the paint was dry, we lit candles inside Adley's diya lamps.

India is also well-known for its henna hand art. Instead of drawing directly on her hand, Adley chose to trace her hand and create designs this way. Very fancy!

Whenever possible, we like bringing in cultural music and/or dancing to our country learning. This particular kid-friendly video taught Adley to do some Bhangra dance steps.

The last segment of our India learning involved animals. First, we watched a video about camel racing. Who knew this was a big annual event in India?! The camels we watched were surprisingly fast!

Next, we learned that Bengal tigers are India's national animal, so Adley made a paper plate version of a tiger.

Since peacocks are India's national bird, Adley made a handprint peacock.

Last, we watched a couple videos of elephant parades and marveled at the amazing way Indian elephants are decorated. Adley colored this elephant and then added some fun bling!

We always end our country learning by trying out some cultural recipes. I figured we could get the best authentic experience by getting food from a local Indian restaurant. The kids were great sports about trying everything but decided the spices were a little too strong on most of the food. They all loved the naan bread!

We also tried tikki masala, chicken biryani, and fresh mango.

We found quite a few books about India from the library. My favorite was Manjhi Moves a Mountain, an inspiring picture book based on a true story. A guy named Dashrath Manjhi spent 20 years creating a pathway through a mountain separating his poor village from a neighboring village with a school, hospital, and market. He used only a hammer, chisel, and sheer determination to "move the mountain" and build the path. So remarkable!

MOROCCO

Our next country study took us back to Africa, this time to the northwestern part of the continent... to Morocco! The flag was fairly simple, although time-consuming, for Adley to color. It took her a few different sittings to finish all the red on the flag!

Next, Adley made a couple of paper Moroccan lanterns. They looked really pretty on our window with the sun shining through!

 

Rug weaving is very popular in Morocco, so Adley tried some paper weaving. This took a bit of fancy fingerwork.

Morocco is also well-known for its mosaic tile art, so Adley made a mosaic out of colored foam...

...and then worked hard to color an intricate mosaic bookmark.

Adley and I learned that some Moroccon towns still have snake charmers that perform in their town squares, even though the practice is largely illegal. Since cobras are the most common types of snakes used in snake charming, we read a book about king cobras and then watched a couple of snake charming videos on youtube. After that, it was time to try out a safe, snake-friendly version of this ancient skill. We cut a snake out of tissue paper and then used static electricity to try to get the snake to rise. It worked!

Another fascinating story we learned about Morocco was about the city of Chefchaouen, otherwise known as the "blue pearl of Morocco." The city gets its nickname because it is literally blue all over-- blue buildings, blue alleyways, blue staircases, blue brick. Different theories exist as to why the city is blue. Some say it was painted blue by Jews who settled there after fleeing Hitler. Others say the blue color is supposed to repel mosquitos; another theory is that the blue simply represents the color of the nearby sea. Whatever the reason, Adley and I loved looking at online photos of this uniquely beautiful city!

After checking out the photos, Adley designed her own blue city!

Our final activity was to create a camel since part of Morocco lies in the Sahara desert.

It was fun to pretend with the camel in our sandbox.

The Moroccan cuisine we tried was couscous. Believe it or not, we actually found a Moroccan-themed couscous packet at our local Wal-Mart. No one in our family liked it.

Finding library books about Morocco wasn't easy, but we succeeded in getting a few.

And... that's a wrap for our summer country "travels."