We’ve been in Spain since last week… even just through our books and activities. Come away with us!
The Story
We read Munro Leaf’s classic picture book The Story of Ferdinand. It is about a little bull in Spain who just wants to sit under a cork tree and smell the flowers. When he gets stung by a bee, however, his ferocious kicking (who wouldn’t go wild, right?) led bullfight organizers to cart him away to Madrid. True to form, once in the bull ring, he refuses to budge and fight the frustrated matador. The story ends with Ferdinand sitting happily under his cork tree.
Our Learning Basket
Our Learning Basket was full and heavy with books and activities.
To get acquainted with Spain where the story is set, we perused our usual jigsaw puzzle book of the world. We talked about Europe, ran through the countries we’ve studied in the past, and tried to remember the capital of Spain. We read a new book too, a glossary of geography terms to find out what a peninsula is because Spain is part of the Iberian Peninsula together with Portugal.
The story is about bullfighting. So we turned a Superman cape into a matador’s red cape and brought out our Sansof sword for our pretend bull fights. Little Sir enjoyed being the little bull!
Ferdinand loves to sit under his favorite cork tree. We borrowed a bagful of cork from Sanne for some math fun (addition and basic multiplication). We also put some in a pail of water to see what will happen; they floated.
A trip to Spain won’t be complete without a snack of yummy Churros con Chocolate. I found an easy recipe to follow that is supposedly used by a cafe in Madrid.
Other than bullfighting, Spain is also known for the flamenco dance. It was such great coincidence then that I came across an announcement for a free flamenco show by the Spanish Embassy and Instituto Cervantes de Manila just a few days away. It was a captivating show that had Little T dancing with a shawl and castanets afterwards.
Music is also a great way to learn about a country. On our way to the show, we listened to our Maestro Classics CD Juanita and the Spanish Lobster. It prepared us to listen for the Spanish guitar, castanets, and lots of stomping during the show.
During the entire week, we also did several easy-to-do notebooking components from Homeschool Share. Homeschool Share is a wonderful resource for lapbooking or notebooking. We also sang “Buenos Dias” to the tune of “Are you sleeping brother John.” Finally, we watched an old Disney video of The Story of Ferdinand, which you have to watch too! Click on the image below to go to the video.
And that friends, was one wonderful week spent in Spain! To continue our “Spanish sojourn” we decided to meet some of its people. We are currently reading and learning about Pablo Picasso and St. Dominic de Guzman this week.
If you’ve been to Spain, for real or through your learning adventure, do share some more ideas!
Make magic!
