Wednesday, September 17, 2014

U is for... United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is the first stop Kennady is making on her Visits to Europe tour in her Cultural Geography course. We'll be spending several more days - maybe a week or so - in the British Isles studying the United Kingdom and Ireland, but since we started today it's excellent timing for Blogging Through The Alphabet!

We are using a combination of two textbooks for Kennady's study of cultural geography - Visits to Europe from Simply Charlotte Mason, and Cultural Geography from BJU Press. Today was our first day in Visits to Europe.


Kennady first studied the map of Europe, concentrating on the United Kingdom, and then filled in the labels on her own copy of the map. She is reading about Great Britain and the daily life of people there in a vintage book by Charlotte Mason called The British Empire and the Great Divisions of the Globe; and a newer book called Material World by Peter Menzel. She wasn't crazy about the Mason textbook because of the older style of the language, but I imagine it will take a bit of adjustment. Material World is a book that gives an intimate look into the lifestyles and belongings of ordinary families in many countries around the world. Today she read about a family living in England and what their daily lives are like and what their home is like.





She also drew a sketch of Big Ben, and plans to sketch Stonehenge sometime soon, to represent some notable landmarks in England.



Kennady enjoyed reading about the English family and their jobs and hobbies. The dad is a fireman and enjoys sailing; the mom is a nurse. After school, the older daughter babysits to earn a little income, and she also takes flute lessons. The younger daughter goes to dance classes. Kennady said the picture showing all their belongings at their home looks very "normal" - not very different from us and many of the families we know. The book tells about the family having saved up to go on a sight-seeing trip to London. While Peter Menzel (the photographer that wrote the book) was there, the weather was very rainy, which they mentioned was not unusual. The rain wasn't going to keep the dad from taking his sailboat out, as he said he enjoyed that even in the rain. We loved the pictures and the realism of this glimpse into everyday life in the United Kingdom.

We will also read more about the United Kingdom in the Cultural Geography textbook, but that's for another day.



I'm also planning to try foods from the various countries we study, rather like we did in our Eating the Americas project over the last school year. Starting with the United Kingdom should make that easy, because we're already familiar with so many of the foods and even know how to make them!

This post is (or will be) linked at Blogging through the Alphabet, hosted by Ben And Me.
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3 comments:

As He Leads is Joy said...

We love geography. That looks like a great study. Today was a grey day here in the UK. We love the food here -- bangers and mash is one of the kids favourite or fish and chips.

Tess said...

If you lived near me you could take your daughter to this British Bistro. It is owned by a British couple who emigrated to the U.S. years ago. They have all kinds of wonderful imported goods from the U.K and the the cafe has several items that you can order to sit and eat like beans on toast LOL.

Kym said...

We used to have a lovely British Tea Room in a nearby town that we liked to visit. It sounds similar - imported goods from the UK and they served proper British tea! Kennady and I talked today and she is going to invite a friend over for Tea soon. :-)

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