Field Trip Chronicles: Netherlands!

Okay, so this was more like a family trip than a field trip, but it counts as a field trip too! I'm a bit late on this post, as we went after Christmas, but I'm finding it difficult to keep up with everything!

We'd been hoping to take a family trip to mainland Europe for quite some time, and our friends in Holland encouraged us to come stay with them, so we finally took them up on it! This was the kids' first trip to mainland Europe, and my 2nd trip. Greg is usually the one who gets to go (more affordable for one person), and he's been to Ukraine 2x, Romania, and Netherlands 2x (not counting this trip) on mission trips. So the kids were thrilled to go somewhere different. Well, Isaac was thrilled to visit a different country, and Moriah was thrilled because our friends have a little girl her age. We chose to drive, via the ferry from Dover, England to Dunkerque, France, and we drove through Belgium to Rotterdam, Holland. One purpose of the trip was to see our friends and also to attend the first service of their new church plant, and the other purpose was just to see some of Holland. There is SOOOO much to see in Holland, and we were limited on time, so we didn't get to see everything on this trip that we wanted to see (like the Anne Frank House), but here's a photo journal of what we did:

1. Highlight of the trip for Isaac was the ferry ride itself! It was neat seeing the White Cliffs of Dover from the boat, but the rainy day weather didn't make for a good photo.




2. Kinderdijk--This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site containing 19 windmills. We also saw the pumping engine used nowadays to drain excess water from the polders.










3. Haarlem--We visited the Corrie ten Boom house/museum and just explored the town.


























4. New Year's Eve and Day--We enjoyed eating oliebollen, playing with sparklers, and watching the best fireworks display we've ever seen (from a 3rd story window). The fireworks went on all day but increased at midnight and carried on until 2:00 a.m. On New Year's Day, we went ice-skating with our friends...well, Greg and the older two kids skated--Gabriela and I didn't!






Typical Dutch breakfast...bread with sprinkles!




5. Wageningen--We went to this town to visit my cousin's son who is studying at the university there. He's from Nicaragua, and this was actually the first time I'd ever met him!








6. Belgium--We drove through Belgium, so I took this picture at a McDonald's we stopped at.


7. Ferry trip home--First few pics are in Dunkerque, France, waiting to board.







Crossing the English Channel!

Tot School: Week 14

Gabriela had a nasty cold this week, so we didn't really do as much in Tot School as we normally do. She just wasn't feeling well, and of course that made her sort of grumpy. I uploaded my pictures today and noticed I had several runny-nose photos of her--not good. I've got to remember to wipe her little nose before I take a picture! Anyway, here's what we did this week:

1. Letter B Tray. I did a search through all my school supplies looking for the letter B on things. I'm trying to gather my alphabet things into one box so I won't have to keep searching through my still-unorganized school supply room. I put the letters in this little box with drawers I found at a charity shop. Gabriela really enjoyed opening the drawers to take the letters out and put them back in. A few of the B's are for play dough, so we tried that. She also colored and stamped a B!



Just a side-note: In the photos, Gabriela is wearing a little red backpack. She's crazy about Dora the Explorer right now, and she was thrilled when I gave her this backpack to play with. She constantly begs me to put it on her and also puts things inside of it to carry around...so cute!







2. Matching Letters--Okay, I found various letters on google images and copied 12 pairs of each letter of the alphabet. I printed off A-D and laminated them. My first thought was to cut them all apart and show Gabriela how to find the matching letters, just like she did the previous week with the mittens. Even though we had already studied letter A, I decided to begin with A for this activity. She didn't catch on as quickly as she did with the mittens. Maybe the laminated paper is too difficult to pick up, or maybe 24 cards is too many for her to deal with. She found a few of them, but she mostly wanted to throw them around (she was in a real throwing mood this week).

Just another side note: Gabriela is going through this stage where if I tell her to smile for the camera, she likes to stick her tongue out...silly girl. : )

So I got a different idea for the B page. I cut the page so that one set of letters stayed together as a card, and the other set was cut apart. Now the task was to match the cut-out letters to a letter on the larger card. This worked MUCH better. She picked this up very quickly and seems to really enjoy it. There are 2 things that could make it all better. First of all, I need to reposition the letters on the pages I've not yet printed and laminated (E-Z) so that they're in 2 rows of 6 going across. This will make it much easier for her to reach all the letters. I noticed on the B card, she turned it sideways to better reach them all. Secondly, I wish I had thick cardboard or thin blocks to attach the letters to...they're a bit difficult for her to maneuver.



Gabriela really got into the letter B this week. The whole time she was doing B activities, she kept repeating the letter name. While doing the Letter B matching game, she started singing a song about the letter B. She made it up herself, and I taped it...enjoy!



3. Clothing Theme--I didn't do as much as I wanted to with this, but we did a few things. First is the Magnetic Dress-up Doll (I can't remember what this is called or which company makes it). I love how she thought the plaid skirt was a hat!


4. Shoe Match Tray (The shoes from the magnetic dress-up doll and a metal tray)--she didn't really get into this activity. She much preferred dressing the doll.


5. Rabbit Dress-up Puzzle thing (I got this at a charity shop and have no idea what it's called). You have a selection of rabbit heads with different facial expressions and a selections of tops and bottoms. The pieces are double-sided, so you have lots of mix and match options.


6. Sensory Box. I've been wanting to do one of these for a long time, but I haven't had a chance to go buy loads of rice or cotton balls or beans, so when my husband decided to empty the paper shredder, I took half of the shredded paper and put it in a plastic tub (don't you just know he thought I was crazy). My only complaint is that it's very messy...BUT easily vacuumed up. I decided to hide hair things in for her to find--barrettes, clips, and ponytail holders. It was difficult to use spooning with the shredded paper, so Gabriela just used her fingers. I put the box on a lowered ironing board to be more at her level. She quite enjoyed this!





7. Scrabble letters and number tiles--She just put these into an ice cube tray and tried spooning them as well. We're not sorting by letter or number yet!



8. Animal Dominoes--I got these in Holland. While they're probably not actually Dutch, I thought they were really cute, so I bought them. At this point I just needed something to occupy Gabriela...I don't know that it was a learning experience. But she really enjoyed playing with them!


For more Tot School posts, see the links on Carisa's page at 1+1+1=1. Happy tot-schooling!