Continents Boxes Blog Hop - Day 3 - Europe

Here are photos for Day 3  - Europe


Thanks to the following people for helping us to make our Europe continents boxes so nice:
The Grands, who shared some of their awesome souvenirs from their world travels...
Papa and G, who did the same...
Uncle Kevin, who gave us some nice photos and souvenirs of Italy, as well as some older lire featuring Dr. Maria Montessori on it...
Our former penpals in Italy who sent us some neat items from Italy, including photos, pen pal letters, little trinkets, and a bi-lingual calendar...
Various wonderful Swapmates who came up with some really neat handmade items...
Sandra and Karen, thank you both so much! I have some but not all of the photos of the items you sent to us on this post. Both really helped make our boxes more interactive, as  both came up with some amazing things for our swap!!! 
The egg wrappers, Van Gogh's work, and Stonehenge are some of the boys' favorites.
Lenka, from the Czech Republic, who sent us some nice items a while back in a different swap.


Our former neighbors from Lithuania, Virgis and Yolita, and their two lovely children, who not only sent us a wonderful box of chocolates (which is not in the photos, as we ate them almost immediately) but also invited us to various Lithuanian celebrations and meals in their home. They were lovely neighbors and have moved since we last were in contact...
If they happen to read this, we need your new address, as we would love to see how you and the children are doing these days...

Also, if you read through this post and have any additional items for Europe that you would like to swap, either electronically or else through the mail, we would be interested in swapping with you. We are still trying to develop our boxes for Europe, as many areas are very underrepresented in what we have, so if you look through this post and you have something that you would be willing to swap that is different than what we have, please let me know and we would be up for a swap with you. 
We would love items from any / all European countries, but especially items from those countries that we are still lacking. 
The photos do not, as of this morning,  include the following:

The animals of Europe, a  Stonehenge interactive work from an awesome swapmate, Karen, birch bark from Serbia, some of our children's books from France,  and our items items from Denmark.
Also,  a couple of my swapmates sent me some tea but I ended up drinking the tea, versus saving it, as I love good teas and just could not resist! Let the boys smell the tea bags as I steeped the tea bags, though, so they did get to experience that.
Will have to take additional photos of these items and will have to load them later in the day.
Well, any questions on a particular item in the boxes, please let me know...

Paper doll - Hungary

Postcard - Sarajevo

Flags of some of the countries in Europe from Karen.These flags are great!We have additional flags that go with our pin map flag work, but these are nice additions, as they can be used separately from the pin map work...

Paper doll, Russian Matryoshka (Stacking Dolls),  wooden music box from Moscow. The music box and the stacking dolls were picked up by the Grands on their travels. So glad that they shared these neat souvenirs with us!

Christmas card and landmarks from Lithuania from our former neighbors.

Money from the former Yugoslavia from Sandra.

Ukrainian egg wrappers, lace,  pressed flowers from Serbia.

from Sandra.

Shells and nature items from near the Adriatic Sea. From a swapmate, Sandra.

Handmade wooden perfume bottle with perfume inside from Bulgaria. From a swapmate, Sandra.

Postcard and flier filled with photos from Belgium

Postcards from Switzerland and photo of little girl from Austria.

Van Gogh's bedroom activity from my continents swapmate, Karen.

Items from Norway and Sweden.

Items from Germany.We received some of these from a swap and some from our pen pals.

Items from the U.K.Thanks Papa and G. the bowl and tray will be used for practical life when we study Europe.

Items from Ireland.Thanks Papa and G. The little booties are handwoven and called Nellies.

Items from Greece.Thanks to the Grands for the souvenir and to Karen for the clay molds of the Greek coins.

Items from Italy.Some are from our pen pals, some from the Grands, and some from Uncle Kevin.

Items from France. Some of the trays will be used when we do practical life work and are learning about Europe.

Items from Spain.Thanks to Michelle for the Musketeer puppet. thanks to Papa and G for the pitcher and the little mugs.

Items from Holland and the Netherlands.Thanks to Juliette for the hand towel covered with tulips.

Well, hope that you liked the tour through our continents boxes for Europe. Also, so that you will know, some of the items double as containers for practical life. The seashells and nature items from the Adriatic Sea are staying in a plastic bag until we get ready to get into the Europe boxes and talk about the Adriatic and North Seas, as well as the Mediterranean Sea. When we get into talking about these, then we will transfer the sea shells and other items onto wooden trays. I will take photos of these later when we get to that point...

Continents Swap - Fabrics and More! Our Cool Package from the Czech Republic!

We received yet another cool package from the Continents Swap  - Fabrics and More! Swap.
This package came to us from Lenka, a new friend from the Czech Republic.
A big thanks to Lenka for sending us this neat package. Oh, how we love to do continents swaps.
So fun and so educational.

Am thinking that we will have to set another one up soon...anyone interested? If you want to do one, what would you want to swap?

I was thinking maybe a picture bookswap, from the country of origin?

Or a recipe swap, for snacks that children could make for themselves either in the classroom or the home?

 Or, we could do something for Spring?

Well, hope to hear from you!

3 Part Cards for India from a Gracious Gal at Mondorfment

Honey from Mondorfment has created some very cool three part cards for India.

We are not currently studying India, but we will add them to our continents box for Asia.

Free download of 3 part India continent cards | Mondorfment

For those of you who may be searching for something for India, these will be great to add to your collection of materials.

She did a nice job and has been so gracious to share.

Enjoy!

Continents Swap - Fabrics and More!

My lovely package from Megan...Thank you, Megan...

Traditional fabric from Germany
Contemporary fabric from the USA
Traditional fabric from the USAMy lovely package from Amanda. Thank you, Amanda.
Contemporary fabric from China
Traditional fabric from China. (Actually from Chinatown in Boston)
This is the reverse side of the Chinese Traditional fabric. So cool that it is reversible!
This is vintage fabric made in the USA. This is the fabric I have included for my swap mates.

Americana swatches of contemporary and traditional fabrics made in the USA from Greenville, South Carolina.
Another view of the Americana swatches...these are the fabrics I included in the packages for my swap mates.

I recently participated in a continents swap, set up by Jojo Ebisujima.

For this swap, we were put into groups of four. We were to send out a parcel containing one modern, contemporary fabric and one more traditional fabric from our country of origin. We also were to include some details about the fabric, as well as maybe a postcard or something small.

With our group of four, we all decided that in addition to sending out the fabrics, we would include some other little items.

I must say that getting packages in the mail is always such a treat!

For my packages, I worked around the theme of Americana.
I found some vintage fabric made in the good ole' USA, along with some more contemporary fabric.
I also included some other goodies in the packages, so hopefully, everyone will love what they receive.

I have already received two packages from my group.

What made our group especially special is that we found out that we actually have so much in common.

My one swap mate and I found out that we are actually from the same hometown!

Who would expect that a swap organized by someone in Japan and that includes people from several continents would put a group of four people together where two of the four are from Erie, Pennsylvania?!?

What are the chances?!?

We also found out that in addition to both homeschooling our sons, we both miss the same places near Erie (Presque Isle and Campbell's Pottery) and the same foods (Nordica Cottage Cheese, pepperoni balls, Troyer Farms Chips, ox roast, and Smith's hot dogs).
As far as our whole swap group:
We all found out that we are all stay at home moms to little boys.
We all love arts and crafts.
All of our group has an interest and appreciation for Montessori.

So neat that we can be from so many different places and yet, have many things in common.

It's a Small World, After All!!! It's a Small, Small World!

If you haven't participated in a continents swap before, I highly encourage you to try one.

You can get some really neat items for your continents boxes, as well as cool items for doing neat arts and crafts projects.

If you look at the number of my posts that contain the words"culture" and / or "continents", you will probably see that the geography and culture portion of the Montessori 3-6 materials are my favorite, and are well loved by Big Bro and Little Bro too.

Sign Scavenger Hunt - Animal Signs

Since Big Bro and Little Bro are into reading environmental print, we have decided to start doing some scavenger hunts to look for signs and things that relate to the signs we see. So, here are some of the signs in our region, as they relate to animals.
This really turned out to be fun!
We are going to post the signs from our scavenger hunt to the Montessori inspired Yahoo group called Continents Swap, as we are hoping that sharing our experiences about the signs we have here will encourage folks to find signs near where they live. 
We had a fun time finding these signs and look forward to doing more...Future Scavenger hunts: public buildings and structures scavenger hunt...