For the last week of July, let’s have a little fun! Let’s do Christmas in July and visit the Christmas Markets in Germany! For us, it’s the other Motherland (hubby’s side) and Germany is also another destination on our bucket list. At least a couple times a year, we get stopped by a German speaker asking if we know the meaning of our last name. And they ask with such adorable anticipation and excitement, waiting to tell us just in case we didn’t know. “Why yes, we know, it means funny. Thank you!” 😆
A special treat for us this week…my college friend Angie helped us with some traveling ideas. She’s actually in Germany studying environmental science! Danke Angie for all your help!! 🇩🇪
Day 1 - Germany Introduction and Anne Frank
- Read – Like with every destination, we find a book to learn about the country we’re visiting. On Epic, we like the “All Around the World” collection so we picked this one to read.
- Watch –
- Lonely Planet’s short introductory video was a great way to see the sights of Germany. Then, we watched our favorite kid travel show Nat Geo Kids’ “Are We There Yet?” that had two episodes on Germany. One on Fairytale Castles and Gingerbread Houses with the other on Downtown Skiing. If you have a princess-loving kiddo at home like mine, Angie found this one that shows more of the Neuschwantsein Castle that is stunning to watch!
- Next, we switched over to learning about Anne Frank. My kids are on the younger side (4 and 7 years old) so I wasn’t going to go into the details of the Holocaust. Given the recent events of social justice, I thought an introduction to racial discrimination was important. Also, since current times are trying especially since my family are staying home as much as possible, I thought my kids could learn from Anne’s perseverance when she hid in the Annex. For the record, I am not equating the COVID pandemic to the Holocaust. The first video we watched was one done by BrainPOP, one of our favorite teaching resources. If you don’t have access, it’s also available on YouTube. The cartoon animation and simple explanations keep my kids attention! I did pause the video a few times to explain things a little more for my younger kids to understand.
- Learn – Then we “stepped inside” the Annex with this incredible virtual tour where you can explore the various rooms of the Annex and read little notes within each room. We spent quite a lot of time in this virtual space.
- Discussion – I read a few Anne Frank quotes to my kids from the Good Reads website and had discussion on what they think she is saying, particularly the quotes on happiness and nature.
- Write/Draw – Inspired by Anne’s diary, I told my kids to pretend that they were in hiding (we kind of are with sheltering-in-place) and to write in their secret diary. My son who is an incoming second grader wrote a journal entry about what he would do once he is out from hiding. My preschooler daughter can’t write yet but is an avid drawer so she drew a picture as her diary entry. My friend Angie had a great idea to discuss how sometimes people need to stay home for other reasons, like when the weather is bad outside, or when they are feeling sick. These scenarios may make kids sad about having to stay home OR may be an exciting opportunity to do something indoors that they normally don’t do, like build forts. The diary would be a great tool to write and share their feelings, good or bad.
- Craft – Jump down to the Freebie section to make this week’s craft: a simple advent calendar, which originated from Germany. The first one dates back to the 19th century! Make this craft on your first day “visiting” Germany to make the “Christmas in July” experience extra special throughout the week. Plus, it’s a great way to wrap up July!
Day 2 - Christmas Markets and German Christmas Traditions
If I ever get the chance to visit Germany, I want to go during Christmastime because I am so fascinated with their beautiful Christmas Markets, called Christkindlmarkt in Germany. So to really get into the Christmas holiday spirit, we played some holiday tunes during breakfast time and the kids got a treat too – hot cocoa with mini marshmallows! Yup, that’s right, I have instant hot chocolate packets readily available in our pantry!
- Watch – With our hot drinks in hand, we “walked” through Germany with one of my favorite travel writers, Rick Steves, who shares the sights and sounds of Germany’s Bavaria in this 5-min video.
- Bake – There’s nothing like the smell of gingerbread! Inspired by Lebkuchen, famous German gingerbread cookies that can be found everywhere at the Christmas Markets, we made gingerbread men cookies as I didn’t have a few of the unique ingredients in the lebkuchen recipe. Since this recipe requires chilling, we prepped the cookies in the morning and baked them in the afternoon. Tip: get yourself this easy-to-use icing pouch that you can use for both gingerbread cookies and houses (see craft section below).
- Read – Oh boy! There are SO many Christmas books out there so you can dig out your kids’ Christmas book collection or look for new ones online. Here are a few that my kids loved, some about Christmas and some about wintertime.
- Twas The Night Before Christmas on YouTube
- Pizza-Pie Snowman on Epic
- Snow Globe Wishes on Epic – darling illustrations!
- What is Snow? on Epic – a little science fun learning about the different ways snow fall.
- Learn – Together, we learned about the Christmas tree, which historians believed began in what is now Germany. Did you know the “O Tannenbaum” song is a German Christmas song? Next, we use this mini book and vocab activity set to learn about the various traditions German do around Christmas time. We even put the kids’ rainboots outside like the German kids to in hopes of receiving treats from St. Nicholas. I put chocolate coins and small fun toys in their boots. For my preschooler, I printed a few pages from these free Christmas-themed worksheets (scroll down to near the bottom of the page to download the worksheets). For my son, we practiced math with the worksheets from this set on Teachers Pay Teachers. By the way, there are a TON more free Christmas-themed resources on TPT if you’re looking for more options.
- Craft – One of my family’s favorite Christmas tradition is decorating gingerbread houses. It was a pleasant surprise to learn that these houses originated from Germany during the 16th century! I usually buy the pre-made kits but since it’s the middle of summer, those kits are not really in stock and therefore are pretty pricey. We opted to make our own using graham crackers, pre-made icing, and an assortment of candies.
- Watch – My kids LOVE The Polar Express movie which we’ve kept on our DVR since December. So, it was a no brainer to watch it again while eating our freshly baked gingerbread cookies to end “Christmas in July” time! There are lots of children Christmas movies on Netflix and Amazon Prime so have at it! 🎅❄🎄☃
Freebie!
Since I’m on a roll (pun intended) with using paper rolls for our “Around the World” With Kids’ craft projects, guess what supplies you will need to make the advent calendar? Yup, paper rolls! You will also need the following supplies: glue, ribbon or twine, goodies to put in the calendar, hole puncher, and this week’s free printable.
Step 1 – Flatten the paper roll and slightly crease the sides.
Step 2 – Cut out the bands and numbered circles from the printable. Punch a hole at the top of each numbered circle tag.
Step 3 – Wrap one band around the center of each roll and glue to secure.
Step 4 – Set the roll upright so that it’s standing on a flat surface. Push down both top edges of the roll until you create a curved surface. Repeat on the other end of the paper roll.
Step 5 – Open one end and drop in a treat and push down the edges again. You should now have a pillow-shaped box.
Step 6 – Wrap ribbon or twine around the box to keep the treat from falling out the sides of your pillow box. Don’t forget to attach the numbered circle tags! Have fun counting down the “Christmas in July” days!,
What a week! The kids had a fantastic time celebrating Christmas in Germany which might be hard to top but the journey continues! We’ll hop onto the plane and head south! Enter coordinates 30.5595° S, 22.9375° E and we will see you soon! 👋👋👋