New York and Egypt, Too!

I know that Russ loves me very much. He consented to ride the roller coaster (pictured below) by my side. What a blast to ride in the cold night air, illuminated by the dizzy, crazy lights of Las Vegas.

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

~ Emma Lazarus, from The New Colossus
(Inscribed on a plaque at the base
of the (real) Statue of Liberty.)

Inside the casino:


Isn't the New York City skyline beautiful?

Let's walk a block and visit Egypt while we're at it:

I wonder where we'll travel next?!

Speaking of Paris

I'm inspired to share just a few photos of the real thing for comparison. Grin. We visited (the real) Paris in 2003.

The photo below shows Russ and me walking toward the Eiffel Tower under a black umbrella on a gray, drizzly day. Isn't that classic?!

And while we're at it, how about a few views of the real Arc de Triomphe. Smile.

Paris

'Paris is always a good idea.'

~The movie Sabrina

Nostalgic. It has been almost 6 years since we stood together in front of the (real) Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Inside the casino:

The sun continues to set:

No trip to Paris is complete

without seeing the Arc de Triomphe.

Enjoying the water fountain show at the Bellagio,

gazing in the direction of Paris:

We returned the next afternoon to watch the fountain in bright sunlight. I read Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris (and snacked on chocolate) in the view of the Eiffel Tower while waiting for the next show. That's my idea of vacation.

The Eiffel Tower and palm trees. Incongruous, no?

Venice

(ETA: Just in case... I've been deliberately vague, but decided that wasn't fair. All of these photos were taken in Las Vegas. Smile. It will be some time before we take a real world tour. And I will have more than 500 photos to share.)

The only thing on my must-do list was a gondola ride. Incredible. Those gondoliers sound amazing in the echo-y spaces of the indoor canals. I could have listened to them serenade us with Italian songs all day long. In fact, our last day we had an extra hour or two with nothing on the agenda, and we took our books and sat on a park bench near the canal and just soaked up the atmosphere. It was lovely.

The cast of characters: a crazy gondolier, a living statue, and the stellar Blue Man Group. We had a blast at the Blue Man Group show!! Exhilarating and hilarious.

Let the Tour Commence

We begin our 'world tour' with arial photographs of Crater Lake in Southern Oregon. This lake, the deepest in the United States (7th deepest in the world), was created thousands of years ago after Mount Mazama erupted and then collapsed.

Crater Lake is on our list of field trips this year, along with Mount St. Helens. I look forward to seeing its exquisite beauty up close!

Around the World

Geography: Geography happens to be one of my favorite subjects. Although we are learning some geography through our history studies, we enjoy learning about our world as a separate subject in its own right. My absolute favorite resource has to be our Geography Songs CD. The tunes are very catchy and easy to sing along with. The last two songs on the CD are Continents/Oceans and Planets, which the boys have memorized.

Last year, I worked with Levi to learn the points of the compass, latitude and longitude, the equator, continents and oceans. Now we are working our way through the countries of the world using the Geography Songs CD and workbook. I am thrilled to have found the flip chart atlas (pictured above) to view while singing the songs and to use for review.

Also last year, I printed off pictures of landmarks around the world and pasted them to large index cards, writing information about the location on the back of the card. The boys and I enjoyed learning about these places and locating them on the map or globe. We will continue to add to our collection with landmarks relating to the area we are learning about in our current studies.

Find more of my geography picture book recommendations here.

Our library happens to have a complete collection of Schlessinger Media's Countries Around the World DVDs. What a gold mine! We have watched (and will continue to utilize) these DVDs to learn more about the countries of the world.

Planning for geography might look something like this:

Day 1: Listen to geography song 2x while looking at area on flip chart atlas.

Day 2: Listen to geography song 2x while coloring black-line map from workbook.

Day 3: Read picture book relating to geographical area or add landmark card to collection. (Listen to song in car while running errands.)

Day 4: Have child point out countries on map and sing song.

Day 5: Watch travel video during TV time. Sing song.

(Repeat for as many weeks as necessary to learn song and locations of countries. Move on to next song when ready. No rush.)

Time allotted: 10-15 minutes daily.

Just for the fun of it, we may occasionally cook foods from our current geographical location using The Usborne Little Round the World Cookbook. It is indeed little, but has wonderful photographs, descriptions of food, and recipes... fascinating to look through, even if one doesn't use the recipes!

You can find more about our 'Around the World' studies here.

More Christmas 'Traveling'...

I love 'traveling' at Christmastime...usually from the comfort of my own home. Grin. We've 'visited' Ireland (and in books here), Morocco, Europe at large, Mexico, Sweden (and in books here), and Germany. (Check out my Christmas Around the World book selections here!)

This year our celebrations haven't (and won't) be as detailed or elaborate as last year (due to general life stuff and other activities), but we added a couple books and lands to the line-up.

The Legend of the Poinsettia was added to The Night of Las Posadas as we learned about Mexican Christmas celebrations.

We visited Japan through Tree of Cranes (and The Paper Crane) before trying our hand at folding paper cranes for decorating our Christmas tree and giving as gifts. This was one of my favorite activities this year! We cut white and red wrapping paper into 6"x6" squares and followed the directions at this wonderful Origami site.
The night before doing the paper crane activity with the boys, I cut up the paper squares (the inexpensive wrapping paper worked well, standard weight paper is harder to work with) and went through the instructions on my own. The first time I thought I would never get it, but the second try went much more smoothly, and by the third I could fold it quickly without the instructions.

I'm so glad I learned how to fold them before teaching the boys. I was able to help them (a lot) without getting frustrated myself. In fact, I've found it addicting and therapeutic. Looks like I may be taking up Origami folding as a hobby!

If we ever manage to get a Christmas tree, I will certainly show you how lovely they look on it! Next year, I hope to have (mostly) handmade tree decor: popcorn and cranberry garlands, pine cones spray painted silver, paper cranes, dried orange slices tied with ribbon, and such.