After learning about England we go north to explore another country within the United Kingdom – SCOTLAND!  One thing I’ve learned about visiting the first country is that it is more helpful if I use these blog posts and update them with resources live as we go so that Pebbles can link off and use it rather than just document what we did! This creates more independent study too which is great.

We have close relatives that moved from England to the Shetland Islands so that will be fun to explore that remote and beautiful region too.  We will NOT be making haggis, and I think watching the movie Braveheart is out of the question at this time so here are some things that we will do:

PASSPORTS:

We filled in the second page in our passport with the main facts, flag and today’s date.  In the center I put a little map of the world there so they’ll color that country in. (is very small… but they won’t forget that it’s north of England within the UK.)

MAPPING:

Continued UK Map in the Scotland region.  (bodies of water, major cities, capital, landforms etc.)
Color the Dover  Map/Facts sheet. (same map of UK we already started with England.)
Learn about flag symbolism, colors.
Found Scotland on the globe, checked it out with GOOGLE Earth & GOOGLE maps.
For our mapping, we’re just focusing on Scotland and adding to our existing UK map.

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/mapping/outline-map/?map=United_Kingdom&ar_a=1

ABOUT the COUNTRY:

There are outstanding websites about Scotland – here are some of our favorites that we explored:

Welcome To Scotland
Visit Scotland

For England, I had already typed up some ‘master’ country fact report sheets that I can print additional pages for every continent and country that we learn about. They’re ready to go for Scotland. Also made a binder with tabs per continent to keep everything organized.

LANGUAGE:

Listened to Scottish dialects at IDEA – International Dialects of English Archive – Scotland.

What is interesting is at first they read the same script choice of a couple – but then afterwards they just talk freely about their life or whatever is interesting to them… and that is when you can really hear the different dialect differences shining through.

LANDMARKS / WONDERS:

• Special Places in Scotland – landforms
• Spent a lot of time cruising the lochs and castles – so dramatic and beautiful. No luck finding Nessie. 😉
• using Google maps we looked up where our relatives live in the Shetlands, had fun ‘driving’ about the rolling countryside looking at sheep!

READING:

It is said that J.K. Rowling of the Harry Potter series began her first book in Edinburgh.  Other famous authors include Robert Louis Stevenson – Treasure Island.

Some of our favorite stories are about the Highland Westies! Two in particular: The McDuff Stories and Good Boy, Fergus!  Pebbles and BamBam cuddled up and read them together along with some Westies (a bobblehead, and Coconut of American Girls.) Any dog lover in particular will love the Fergus stories.

Pebbles read about Mary, Queen of Scots in two vastly different books: Mary, Queen of Scots: A Queen without a Country and You Wouldn’t Want to Be Mary Queen of Scots.

VIDEOS:

Disney Pixar’s Brave
* Rather interesting The Visit Scotland website it using the popularity of this movie to sell tourism of Scotland. Check out their Library of Scotland video of their beautiful landscapes. Stunning beauty.  More to see at their main site too.

Welcome to Scotland –  travel videos published

PEOPLE/CULTURE:

• we read books about Scotland
• listened to Highland bagpipe music
• learned Highland dancing through online videos – the kids performed two dances for us!
• found out we may have an old ancestral tie to the clan of Lindsay through my mom’s maiden name, both spelling variations were on the Lindsay clan list; however, we have not yet found the tie in our family tree to date up to late 1700s? All in England so far on that side….
• looked at the Lindsay clan crest and tartan designs
• learned more about clans and how each clan has their own crest, tartan, motto etc.
• link to find your own clan
• grandma told us how she learned when she was little about Robert the Bruce in a cave during battle being inspired by the spider who never gave up fixing his web
• looked at old slides of grandma and grandpa while they visited Scotland in 1965 and heard about the friendly Highland Bull  that came up to mom as she was taking photos of him. He’s rather cute under all that hair!
• grandma sent a photo of her doll that her father (my grandpa – the kids’ great-grandfather) had given her from Scotland

 WILDLIFE:

Scottish Wildlife: Mammals, Birds and Fish

Scottish Dog Breeds

ART/CRAFT:

• make a tartan kilt for a doll
• felt a Pine Martin
• design a tartan with cut paper strips; talked about weaving – warps & wefts – and how the straight, angles, parallel, perpendicular… no curved designs.

FOOD WE ENJOYED:

• making true shortbread with tons of real butter and sugar – used the American Test Kitchen recipe! Worked perfectly.

 REFLECTIONS of our Scotland adventure:

Scotland was just as much fun as England and we all have a greater appreciation of this rugged and beautiful land!

Postcards to grandma and grandpa to share a few fun memories 🙂

Join us as we explore IRELAND next!