Around the World: Welcome to England!

Our travel adventure continues this week! We boarded our make-believe plane and headed across the ocean (singing our favorite travel themed songs along the way) to our first stop on the continent of Europe: England! My little travel companion is always excited to get another stamp in his passport (and one on each hand). He loves seeing photographs and hearing tidbits from non-fiction books on the countries we are learning about. I try to also include some relevant fiction and Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline in London was a big hit. He loved the rhyme scheme and the illustrations as well.

Each country we visit comes with its own host of interest activities and themes to explore. Architecture and building are a big theme of what we will be learning about as we travel through four European countries this week. Our play area is stocked with some favorite building toys as we explore the beautiful castles, bridges, towers and other interesting structures pictured in many of the books we've checked out of our local library. Meanwhile, we had our first snowfall of the year here, providing a great building medium outside! Check out my upcoming Mad Science Monday post next week for a great science/engineering activity on building and testing bridges...

Language development is also a huge part of our Around the World until. We are developing a lot of vocabulary around traveling and taking some opportunities to soak up the local languages of the interesting lands we visit as well. We've been working on a chart of greetings in various languages from the countries we study. When we visit a country like England that is also predominantly English speaking, it's especially fun to learn about some words that are used differently than they are here. My son got such a kick out of calling potato chips "crisps," and french fries, "chips!"

We use this unit as a surrounding theme as well with our learning about letters, shapes, numbers, colors and other core skills. This week we introduced the letter B, and what could be more fun than singing and dancing to the song "London Bridge" or "Row, Row, Row Your Boat?" Making a collage about it! Check out our London Bridge, complete with a boat traveling beneath it!

We love using stamps as another medium to
practice pre-writing and letter recognition

Mr. Munch returned this week for a second course--but this time he's got a strong taste for the letter Bb! This is such a fabulous fine motor activity and manipulating letter magnets is a great way to introduce those little hands to the shape and structure of letters they will someday grow to write. I've found that the more means of exploring letters and their sounds, the better. Using a multi-sensory approach and including a lot of exposure and playfulness to how you introduce core concepts like letters, numbers, shapes and colors truly does help it all sink in.

I was a super proud mommy this week when my little one brought me a book he's been loving from the library and said "Look, Mommy, letter B!"

All of our building and learning has definitely made us hungry and perhaps a bit thirsty as well. Join us next post for a peek at our English Tea Time including some great children's literature, a cute craft and a fabulous process art activity. Until then, happy playing and safe travels!