Argentina, the UK, Sweden, and my heritage.

This week we studied Brazil and made carnival masks as our activity.

Then we studied Argentina. We had no activity. I felt so guilty for not doing Argentina properly. When I was four, my brother came home from his mission to Argentina, and I was enamored with all things Argentinian from then on. (Although maté made me want to barf.) I felt like a traitor to my brother and childhood for not doing an activity, but I had planned on painting gourds and couldn't find any.

On a slightly less dramatic note, we studied Sweden. I was always told that the Thulin (my maiden name)  clan came from a Sweden viking line, and that there are villages there that even resemble the name Thulin. I'm not sure how true this is. I know my uncle wants it to be true since he and his son served their missions there, but when I actually look at genealogy charts, they say we're really from Norway.

Nevertheless, my brother (the one who went to Argentina) and his family always celebrate St. Lucia in honour of our Swedish heritage, so I decided to do the same.

Wasn't it perfect that my niece came by for the event? And I didn't even burn her hair.

But what I really loved teaching my kids about this week was the UNITED KINGDOM! I might of been enamoured by Argentina, but I was OBSESSED with England as a child. My mom is from there, and stories from England were my favourite stories ever.

I remember thinking as I looked at the mountains that completely surrounded the Utah valley I lived in, that Utah was inside the mountains, and the England was on the other side.

We made Christmas crackers as our activity, and the boys thought this grand fun since it made it seem like Christmas again.

And since we started on a new continent, we are done with our America geography song. Maxwell got quite good at it:

Now on to learning the Europe song!


And since Christmas break is behind us, school is in full blown splendor. That's right: Science, robotics, co-op, and piano are back.

For science, we are doing geology, and studied the history of the earth a bit and the makeup of the earth. We talked about the rock cycle and the state of the interior of the earth. Here's us seeing how a raw egg wobbles compared to a hard boiled egg so we could talk about how the earth wobbles a bit too.

And co-op. Holy cow! This theatre thing is being taken very seriously. My boys are practicing three days a week! I even had to pack them a lunch one day. I'm not used to that! Boy they are working hard. That director is amazing.