Learning About Canada with Winter Promise Children Around the World
Welcome to the Canada installment of our Learning About Children Around the World with Winter Promise series! This was a particularly fun week for us, and we are excited to share about it with you!
My girls have been quite enamored with Canada for several years now, ever since we listened to the Anne of Green Gables audio book together and then soon after discovered the Hallmark TV show When Calls the Heart (affiliate link) which is very loosely based on the Janette Oke books of the same title (affiliate link) which I have loved for a long time. When the girls heard we were studying Canada this week, they begged me to include watching episodes of When Calls the Heart in the schedule as often as possible! We did watch several in the evening after the little ones went to bed – all for the sake of learning, of course. 🙂
It was fun to have the girls so enthusiastic this week, and they eagerly worked to tie together the little they thought they knew with the history, geography, and culture included in our Winter Promise Curriculum. They especially loved learning more about the modern Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We all were fascinated by the Aurora Borealis, and the girls really enjoyed the information included about the Inuit culture.
Everyone also really enjoyed painting tourism posters for Canada. The 3-year old’s painting was very abstract. 🙂 The 9-year old and the 5-year old opted for more traditional posters to hang on our door while the 11-year old wanted to paint the driveway again like she did for our week in Russia. My favorite part of her driveway art is the Mountie she included!
To wrap up our week, we invited our pastor and his wife, who are both Canadians, to come and have dinner with us to celebrate Canada. They were such good sports, oohing and aahing over the driveway and the posters and the boys’ Canada shirts someone gave us and listening to the kids tell about what they had learned, plus they surprised us all by bringing a very Canadian dessert, Nanaimo bars. Wow! They were delicious! I think we were all ready to move to Canada by the end of dessert! 🙂
So that wraps up our Canada week! Have you had the pleasure of visiting Canada? We’d love to hear about it. After reading last week’s post about our studies of the U.S.A., my cousin sent the kids a long email full of information about what it’s like to live in America. It was fabulous, and they loved it! So if you’ve got Canada stuff to share with us, please do tell us in the comments. We really do love to hear from you!
Ooooh, I’m so jealous – I love Nanaimo bars, but I haven’t had them in about 2 decades! I think it’s time I made them and introduced them to my family. It’s a shame they haven’t yet had the pleasure.
Here’s a fun bit of info for you: Every single RCMP member is trained in Regina, Saskatchewan, about 1 mile from the house I grew up in! Mom and Grandma (and later me) used to work in a laundromat at the end of the street and I’ve never seen so many socks used in a week!!! When I was small my job was to match up all the sport socks in exchange for a quarter at the end of the day 😉
I’m so happy to see your family learning about Canada way on the other side of the world, it’s a great place to live, and I do hope we’ll get back there again.
I love the signs, they’re fantastic! And the side walk art is a great idea!
Happy (early) Canada Day!
What a fun idea! I think it would be great to homeschool and have the freedom to study different countries like that. If you ever teach about Kenya, let me know – I grew up there and would be glad to send pictures or information, talk to the kids about it over Skype, etc.!
Love the driveway painting! I grew up in Northern Maine which is just over the border from Canada. Some of my favorite childhood memories involve my Canadian relatives!
Thanks for this post!
Such a fun unit! My husband and I have been to Canada but we’ve yet to bring the boys.
You have blessed me today by celebrating my beautiful country! I live in British Columbia in the Okanagan valley and I love it here. I am heading to the dollar store this afternoon – if I find any Canada stuff, I can send it to you. Things don’t usually pop up until closer to Canada Day, but I can look!
Aw, Aimee! Thank you so much. You are so sweet. British Columbia is VERY high on my bucket list of places to visit!
I didn’t find anything yet. If you email me your address, I can get some stuff closer to Canada Day (July 1). aimeeimbeau(at)gmail.com
Another Canadian thing is poutine. This yummy side dish has french fries smothered with mozza cheese curds – or grated mozza if you can’tfind curds – and gravy. So yummy!
You can also say ‘eh’ at the end of your sentences;)