Creative Family Fun

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World Culture Activities for Kids

Exploring Alaska: Resource Post

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(map image via Brian Swan Creative Commons License)

Do you want to do your own exploration of Alaska? I’ve compiled a list of books, activities, blog posts, videos, and websites that helped us with our project. Bear with me as this list is quite extensive, but I’m providing it in the hopes to help you create your own virtual journey through Alaska.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

Alaska: An Overview
Books:
Alaska (Welcome to the U.S.A.) by Ann Heinrichs
Denali National Park and Preserve (True Books: National Parks) by David Petersen (Both this book and Alaska (Welcome to the U.S.A.) are not widely available for purchase. They are however, widely available in public libraries. So, if you want to use these books, check your library first.)
Under Alaska’s Midnight Sun by Deb Vanasse
The Salmon Princess: An Alaska Cinderella Story by Mindy Dwyer
Arctic Lights, Arctic Nights by Debbie S. Miller
A Child’s Alaska by Claire Rudolf Murphy
Videos: 
Travel Alaska YouTube Channel – We watched several videos on the Travel Alaska Channel to see all the different areas of the state. Some of the videos are ads, but those are clearly marked. The others are a great overview of this beautiful state.
Websites:
Nature Walk: Denali, Alaska at Imagine Childhood – Take a virtual nature walk through Denali in the wintertime
Activities:
Alaska-themed Creative Family Fun Night
Alaska state coloring page via Crayola.com

Moose
Books:
Moose (Animals That Live in the Forest) by JoAnn Early Macken

It’s a Baby Moose! (Baby Mammals)
by Kelly Doudna
Amazing Animals: Moose by Kate Riggs 
Elusive Moose by Joan Gannij
This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers
Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose by Dr. Seuss
Looking for a Moose by Phyllis Root
If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Joffe Numeroff
Activities:
Moose Silhouette Paintings
Moose craft and If You Give a Moose a Muffin activities from Crayon Freckles
If You Give a Moose a Muffin muffin-tin meal from Coffee Cups & Crayons

Sled Dogs and The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
Books:
Mush! Across Alaska in the World’s Longest Sled-Dog Race by Patricia Seibert
Douggie: The Playful Pup Who Became a Sled Dog Hero by Pam Flowers
Wind-Wild Dog by Barbara Joose
Dogteam by Gary Paulsen
Websites:
Iditarod – The Last Great Race – The is the official website of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. You’ll find videos, photos, a history of the race, and a very extensive education section.

Native Alaskans
Books:
Eskimo Boy: Life in an Inupiaq Village by Russ Kendall (This is another book that is not available to purchase new, but it was too good of a resource not to include. Look for it in your public library.)
Kitaq Goes Ice Fishin
by Margaret Nicolai
The Eagle’s Gift by Rafe Martin
Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest by Gerald McDermott

The Polar Bear Son: An Inuit Tale by Lydia Dabcovich
Activities:
Totem pole project and writing prompt from Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational
Totem pole craft from No Time for Flashcards

For the Older Kids (Elementary-Aged & Beyond)
Books:
Dogsong by Gary Paulsen 
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
White Fang by Jack London
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Activities:
The book,Hands-On Alaska: Art Activities for All Ages by Yvonne Y. Merrill, was full of art and craft ideas that would be appropriate for your older children. The projects were based on traditional Alaska Native art. The projects are amazing, and the instructions will help you make masks, jewelry, and many more works of art.

Other topics to consider:
Northern lights, grizzly bear, bald eagle, the tundra, glaciers, totem poles, salmon, and snow

I hope these resources help you in planning your own exploration of Alaska (or just to find some awesome new books to read). If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me or ask in the comments. Have fun!

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Greek Salad Bites

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We’ve been to so many fun places while participating in Around the World in 12 Dishes, and this month we landed in Greece.

I was excited; I love Greek food. Now, I just needed to find a way to introduce it to the girls in a way that they would get them excited to try.

I stumbled across this fantastic idea for a Bite-Sized Greek Salad from Cooking With My Kid and knew that with a few tweaks, it would be perfect for us.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

We started with some grape tomatoes, black olives, sliced cucumber, and feta cheese.

I showed the girls how to thread them on their toothpicks and put them to work.

They loved the assembly line we set up and threaded salad bite after salad bite.

One olive on the toothpick, one olive in the mouth. One tomato on the toothpick, one tomato in the mouth.

As with all of our food projects, I’ve learned that it works best to only introduce one new food at a time. This time, I was introducing feta cheese. It was much easier to get them to try it when it was combined with foods that they love, olives, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

Once the salad bites were complete, I dressed the salad with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The result was a light and refreshing snack (or side dish) that was gobbled down by everyone in the family. Success!

Would you like to participate? Here’s how:

Welcome to “Around The World in 12 Dishes”. We will be taking you on a journey around the world, (loosely) following in Phileas Fogg’s footsteps, exploring 12 different countries with our children, by cooking 12 dishes with them. One for each country visited.
The world is such a wonderfully diverse and colorful place. Our children see maps, flags and books. They see postcards and maybe they see films about the world.. but let’s really bring it to life through food! Taste and smell don’t often get explored, we think this would be wonderfully fun and interesting for you and your children.
Not only is it an exciting and different way to learn about cultures, but cooking with children brings a host of benefits – from numeracy to science. How can you beat that?

Around the World in 12 Dishes

We had started our journey the same way Phileas Fogg did in London, UK, and now are arriving in Athens, capital of Greece!

  • March 4 – First country was the UK
  • April 1 – The second country was Sweden
  • May 6 – The third country was Russia
  • June 3 – The fourth country was India
  • July 7 – The fifth country was Japan
  • August 5 – The sixth country was Australia
  • September 2 -The seventh country was French Polynesia
  • October 7 – The eighth country was Mexico
  • November 4 – The ninth country was Brazil
  • December 2 – The tenth country was Morocco
  • January 13 – The eleventh country is Greece

How to join the fun!

  • The only mandatory part is the dish, the rest is all up to you, we just thought it would be fun and more concrete to the kids as to why we are making a unusual dish.
  • Cook a dish from Greece: The goal is to explore this country through FOOD and activities if you wish. Make a typical dish (sweet or savoury) from the country with the kids, take photos and have fun!
  • Typical dishes: Gyros, Souvlaki, Spanakopita, Baklava.
  • Print your passport: Click here to download, comes with space for a photo of the child with the dish. Here is a little cover for it if you wish 🙂
  • Color a placemat: Once colored/painted or whatever other way you want to do this, you can laminate it or put it between clear contact paper to use it over and over. Great conversation piece for you and your kids. Click here to download it.
  • Make a craft: you can make a country related craft with the kids [optional!]
    • Fun fact: Santa Claus is Greek. St Nicholas was a rich Greek that used to donate his money to the poor.

Project Around the World: Exploring Alaska

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I mentioned in my Best of 2012 post that the girls and are would be embarking on a “virtual” trip about the world. Well, we started our journey in the USA in the northernmost state, Alaska.

My previous plan of a weekly schedule just wasn’t working out for us. So, while thinking of other options, I kept coming back to the idea of exploring the world. We’ve liked the previous projects we’ve done about world culture. I wanted to do more and I knew the girls would be interested as well.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

To prepare, I made both of the girls a passport. I used the tutorial I had previously published here. I kept things simple with blue card stock for the cover and white copy paper for the inside. For our stamps, I’m just going to draw a little design in a circle for each of our destinations.

We started with a selection of books. I used Alaska (Welcome to the U.S.A.) by Ann Heinrichs as our overview book. It hit all the high points and we used it as a travel guide. I decided on a few highlights from Alaska that we were going to visit, Denali National Park, the Iditarod Dog Sled Race, and an introduction to the Eskimo culture.

The activities I had planned were not complicated. I know that if this project ever gets stressful, we’d quit. I want this to be fun, enjoyable, as well as being educational.

So, how did I make it fun? We set up one of the girls’ little tents in our play room and turned it into a campsite. We’ve got sleeping bags and flashlights to add to the fun as we pretend to camp at Denali National Park.

We’ve been reading books at our campsite and playing games, such as this fun ice fishing game I found at Joyfully Weary.

We’ve been using the opportunity to practice writing, by making lists, and also practicing story telling. We’re still deep in the middle of our journey to Alaska and I hope to share more as we go along. We’ve created some beautiful artwork and also have a Creative Family Fun Night planned.

You can find all the resources we use at Exploring Alaska: Resource Post.

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Morocco

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When Around the World in 12 Dishes whisked us away to Morocco this month, the girls and I decided to spend out time in the markets of Marrakech.

We watched a short video on National Geographic Kids and looked at their slideshow. We talked about all the different things you could find at the markets, such as clothing, leather, olives, tea, dried fruits & nuts, and carpets.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

I was very fortunate to have found a book at our local public library that was set in the markets of Marrakech, My Father’s Shop by Satomi Ichikawa.

In this book, Mustafa, who always admired the beautiful carpets in his father’s shop, asked his father if he could have the rug with the hole in it. His father agrees to give Mustafa the carpet only if he agrees to learn some of the foreign languages that were important to their trade. We learned, along with Mustafa, of the importance of being able to communicate with people from all over the world.

To go along with the book, we created out own rugs similar to the ones we imagined Mustafa’s father sold in his shop.

We used construction paper and our markers to create the designs on the rug. I joined along this time instead of just observing the process.

After we had our designs, we used our scissors to cut a fringe along the two short sides of our “rugs.”

By now, I’m sure you’re wondering about the food. Well, this month, we skipped the food and went for the craft instead.

While browsing recipes, I couldn’t find anything that I thought the family would like, let alone try. We love some of the individual ingredients, but when combined together, I knew I would be hard pressed to get anyone to try a bite.

Since this is supposed to be a fun project, I didn’t want to add that kind of stress to it. If you have any suggestions for a kid-friendly Moroccan meal, let me know. I’m still willing to give it a try!

Even minus the food, we still had a great experience imagining ourselves as rug sellers deep in the markets of Marrakech.

 

Welcome to “Around The World in 12 Dishes”. We will be taking you on a journey around the world, (loosely) following in Phileas Fogg’s footsteps, exploring 12 different countries with our children, by cooking 12 dishes with them. One for each country visited.
 
The world is such a wonderfully diverse and colorful place. Our children see maps, flags and books. They see postcards and maybe they see films about the world.. but let’s really bring it to life through food! Taste and smell don’t often get explored, we think this would be wonderfully fun and interesting for you and your children.
 
Not only is it an exciting and different way to learn about cultures, but cooking with children brings a host of benefits – from numeracy to science. How can you beat that?
 

Around the World in 12 Dishes

We had started our journey the same way Phileas Fogg did in London, UK, and now are arriving in Rabat, capital of Morocco!

  • March 4 – First country was the UK
  • April 1 – The second country was Sweden
  • May 6 – The third country was Russia
  • June 3 – The fourth country was India
  • July 7 – The fifth country was Japan
  • August 5 – The sixth country was Australia
  • September 2 – The seventh country was French Polynesia
  • October 7 – The eighth country was Mexico
  • November 4 – The ninth country was Brazil
  • December 2 – The tenth country is Morocco!

How to join the fun!

  • The only mandatory part is the dish, the rest is all up to you, we just thought it would be fun and more concrete to the kids as to why we are making a unusual dish.
  • Cook a dish from Morocco: The goal is to explore this country through FOOD and activities if you wish. Make a typical dish (sweet or savoury) from the country with the kids, take photos and have fun!
  • Typical dishes: Tajine, Briouat, Kefta, Merguez or Ma’amoul.
  • Print your passport: Click here to download, comes with space for a photo of the child with the dish. Here is a little cover for it if you wish 🙂
  • Color a placemat: Once colored/painted or whatever other way you want to do this, you can laminate it or put it between clear contact paper to use it over and over. Great conversation piece for you and your kids. Click here to download it.
  • Make a craft: you can make a country related craft with the kids [optional!]
    • Fun fact: Even though the official language is Arabic, Moroccan Arabic is so different that someone from, for example, Saudi-Arabia will hardly be able to understand.

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Brazil

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This month, Around the World in 12 Dishes is visiting Brazil.

When I asked Lizzie what she learned about Brazil, the first thing she said was, “they make good chocolates!” Why yes, they do.

The food we chose for Brazil was the brigadeiro, a popular chocolate candy. They were fun to make and definitely yummy.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

I followed the recipe I found on Allrecipes. (Click here for the brigadeiro recipe.)

The recipe was simple and had only three ingredients. But, like all candy recipes, there are some tricks for success. Make sure you cook the ingredients over the stove until it is thick and comes away from the bottom of the pan. You can see in the above picture that when I poured the chocolate mixture into a pan to cool, it stayed in a big blob. I also popped my pan into the freezer for a quicker cool down. If you try to make the balls while the mixture is too warm, you end up with a sticky mess.

Traditional brigadeiros are covered in chocolate sprinkles, which I didn’t have in my cupboard. Instead we rolled out candies in cocoa. The girls took over the candy making. They made the balls and rolled them in the cocoa. While they were making the candy, we watched a few on-line videos to learn about Brazil.

National Geographic Kids is a fantastic resource for kid-friendly information about the different countries of the world. We viewed the photos and the map and also watched the short video on the site.

Brazil was a fun country to learn about and we hope to learn more about the rain forests. Would you like to participate? Here’s how:

Welcome to “Around The World in 12 Dishes”. We will be taking you on a journey around the world, (loosely) following in Phileas Fogg’s footsteps, exploring 12 different countries with our children, by cooking 12 dishes with them. One for each country visited.
 
The world is such a wonderfully diverse and colorful place. Our children see maps, flags and books. They see postcards and maybe they see films about the world.. but let’s really bring it to life through food! Taste and smell don’t often get explored, we think this would be wonderfully fun and interesting for you and your children.
 
Not only is it an exciting and different way to learn about cultures, but cooking with children brings a host of benefits – from numeracy to science. How can you beat that?

Around the World in 12 Dishes

We had started our journey the same way Phileas Fogg did in London, UK, and now are arriving in Brasilia, capital of the biggest South American country Brazil.!

  • March 4 – First country was the UK
  • April 1 – The second country was Sweden
  • May 6 – The third country was Russia
  • June 3 – The fourth country was India
  • July 7 – The fifth country was Japan
  • August 5 – The sixth country was Australia
  • September 2 – The seventh country was French Polynesia
  • October 7 – The eighth country was Mexico
  • November 4 – The ninth country is Brazil!

How to join the fun!

  • The only mandatory part is the dish, the rest is all up to you, we just thought it would be fun and more concrete to the kids as to why we are making a unusual dish.
  • Cook a dish from Brazil: The goal is to explore this country through FOOD and activities if you wish. Make a typical dish (sweet or savoury) from the country with the kids, take photos and have fun!
  • Typical dishes: Feijoada, Baião de dois, Sarapatel, Galinhadaplus Queijadinha, Moqueca de peixe and Bridgardeiros.
  • Print your passport: Click here to download, comes with space for a photo of the child with the dish. Here is a little cover for it if you wish 🙂
  • Color a placemat: Once colored/painted or whatever other way you want to do this, you can laminate it or put it between clear contact paper to use it over and over. Great conversation piece for you and your kids. Click here to download it.
  • Make a craft: you can make a country related craft with the kids [optional!]
    • Fun fact: Brazil has one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, the Christ Redeemer statue, located in Rio De Janeiro.