Peace of Peru

We've been learning about Peru for the past week or two. Today a little Peruvian-American girl presented me with a carton of alfajores (sandwich cookies filled with dulce de leche) and informed me that yesterday she and her family were celebrating "the Peace of Peru." It turns out that yesterday and the day before were the Peruvian Independence Days, or Fiestas Patrias! What a fortuitous coincidence.

I'm going to make more alfajores tomorrow with another Peruvian-American friend. We're also going to drink some Inka Cola, a bright yellow beverage that is supposedly super-sweet. My kids should enjoy tomorrow.

Learning about France

I think I gained weight in just the past two weeks. Curse you, tasty French food!

Here are some of the things we did to learn about France this summer:

• Learned about life in France from my niece, who recently returned from an LDS mission in France and Belgium.
• Set up a playdate for my daughter with a French friend from school.
• Did some ballet, taught by my talented sister who majored in dance long ago.
• Listened to French impressionistic music while viewing slides of French Impressionists' art and painting at the kitchen table.
• Went to a French bistro and ate croissants and snails. Dd10, dd8, and dd5 all ate the escargot and liked it.
• Read and watched Madeline books/shows.
• Read library books about France. You Wouldn't Want to Be an Aristocrat in the French Revolution!: A Horrible Time in Paris You'd Rather Avoid was a favorite of the older girls.
• Ate a lot of Nutella and some French cheeses.
• Watched non-fiction videos on Amazon Prime about children living in France.
• Invited a college student to dinner so she could tell us about her recent study abroad experience in France and show us her souvenirs.
• Made or bought, then ate apple galette, ratatouille, macarons (not to be confused with macaroons), croque monsieur sandwiches, French bread and baguettes, quiche, chocolate sandwiches (yes, pieces of bread with chocolate between), and several rich dishes seasoned with garlic and herbes de provence.
• Watched Phantom of the Opera, Aristocats, and Ratatouille.

Macaron cookies. Not sufficiently cylindrical, unfortunately. 

I feel fortunate to have many relatives and acquaintances who can help me teach my children about other countries. Traveling abroad with a large family is prohibitively expensive, so I appreciate everyone that helps fill our home-bound summer country studies with authentic experiences related to those countries. 

I also greatly appreciate the food bloggers and recipe posters and reviewers who make it possible for me to cook Yemeni, French, Lithuanian, Peruvian, and Taiwanese dishes almost immediately.

Learning about Lithuania

We recently finished learning about Lithuania for 2 weeks. Among other things, we did the following:

• Invited over a friend from church who served as a missionary in Lithuania. She showed us her souvenirs and pictures, wore traditional Lithuanian clothing, and read part of a Lithuanian children's book to us. We baked aguonu sausainiukai--which are poppyseed cookies--ahead of time so we could eat them with her.
• Made bracelets and necklaces out of wood, shell, and amber beads.
• Cooked lots of Lithuanian food, including cold beet soup, beet potato salad, cepelinai (blimp shaped potato dumplings filled with meat), and kugelis (a VERY tasty baked dish made of potato, egg, bacon, and milk).
• Played a little basketball because it's a favorite sport in Lithuania.
• Celebrated the Lithuanian midsummer day by making flower wreaths and putting them into the water (see the previous post).
• Ate a lot of thickened yogurt (it should have really been sour cream, but that was just too fattening for me).
• Watched versions of the folktale about Jūratė and Kastytis. It is about a mermaid sea queen who lives in a castle made of amber underwater; when she falls in love with a mortal fisherman, a jealous thunder god blasts her castle into bits, and that is why amber washes up on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

What fun we had. :) Now we're onto a fortnight or so of studying France. French food is so good, though, that I might squeeze in an extra day or two on France.

This post will be in the July 2015 Carnival of Homeschooling.