Emma and Lily learn about Italy
One of the things I love most about blogging is the ability to connect with people who live miles and miles away. I love to read the conversations Sadia (rhymes with Nadia) has with her inquisitive and incredibly intelligent twin daughters, and I was super excited to get a surprise package from her! Sadia discovered Tripper’s Travels: An International Scrapbook, and knew that I would appreciate it as a fellow Third Culture Kid. My kids sometimes find my childhood confusing, much as I find the question “But where are you from?”) difficult to answer. After not-quite-seven quiet years on a corn farm in Utah, I spent my remaining 11 years “at home” in Washington, D.C., Guatemala, France, Bolivia, and Austria. And when I left home for college, my parents moved, too – to Nicaragua, Ukraine, and even back to the United States for a one-year stint. “Grandma and Grandpa in Austria” used to be “Grandma and Grandpa in Sweden”, and come summer they will be “Grandma and Grandpa in somewhere-yet-to-be-determined”.
Tripper the dog’s scrapbook provides fun pictures and fascinating facts about Mexico, the United States, France, Italy, Russia, Egypt, Kenya, India, Japan, and Australia. My kids were especially interested in the Italy pages since Mike traveled there for work recently, but we have strong family connections to France (I lived there for three years), Russia (one brother-in-law is Russian – making one cousin half-Russian, two of my brothers lived there for two years, and Russian is the one foreign language everyone in my family has studied – to widely varying degrees!), Japan (my sister lived there for a year and a half, some of my cousins were born there, and my best friend from college is Japanese), Mexico (several family friends), and Italy (family friends). We’re working on our connections to Egypt, Kenya, India, and Australia. Australia has a definite advantage over the others, thanks to a few blogs I read! =)
I think this book helps my kids understand the concept of different countries and cultures, and I’m thinking of using it as the basis of a geography hop. Anybody want to come along for the ride?
Thank you, Sadia, for introducing us to such a neat book! If you haven’t checked out Double the Fun, you should! Sadia does a fantastic job of sharing everyday life, and she’s a thoughtful, insightful, and inspiring blogger.
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
I totally agree with Natalie about your upbringing! And, you are such a good mom and teacher for your sweet children.
This does sound like a good book. I hope my library will have it.
The geo hop is tempting. I have been trying hard to figure out a way to incorporate geo into our homeschool without totally overwhelming myself anymore than I already feel lately when it comes to teaching and planning.
I’m all over the geography hop! Between your international school friends and mine, we should have all the continents but Antarctica covered!
(Thanks for the shout-out. I’ve completely fallen off the planet when it comes to reading blogs. Can’t wait to get organized enough to be back!)
Cool book. My 80 year old Grandma is still traveling the world. My kids get trinkets from her from all different countries. My 2 nephews were born in China. And some of my cousins live in Nica. My kids are still little and don’t understand a lot about other countries but I think this book could be fun for them to start understanding. Great review, by the way!
Kinda related… a friend of mine travels a lot for work. She would take out the map every time she left and show him where she was going. As a result, this little guy is a master at geography and he “gets” different locations, time zones, etc. Thought it was a neat way to turn a potential “negative” into a learning experience for her son!
I’m up for a geography hop, although I have no idea what it would be! A Bit of This and a Bit of That did a geography hop, where we came up with recipes, crafts and info about other countries to swap with people, that was fun. :-)
I simply rushed to the Library website and requested it! What an awesome upbringing you had, and I think it’s fantastic that you are trying to pass on your adventurous spirit to your children. I am curious – if Emma is born in UK (as I think she was), is she a EU citizen?
I think I’d be up for a geography hop… though I’m not quite sure what that is! Cute picture of the girls so intent over that book!
@Elisa – I don’t know if geography hop is really the right term, but I was thinking of studying the countries (hopping from country to country), following the order of the book.
Sounds like a wonderful book to explore.
What a great book to have in your library!
That does sound super cool.
Oooh, that sounds really good!