Summer World Travel: Caribbean

Hello again, and welcome here!  Are you travelling with us around the world with Focus on the Family?  If not, why not join in?  It is fun, and can be as simple as just following the itinerary they have themselves, or as complex as you wish to make it.  I decided to post the links to recipes and youtube videos that I am using with my own kids, as well as the maps and printables I made to go with the 'program' myself.  You can view those by clicking the links below.

Time for a Summer Adventure!
Summer World Travel: Ethiopia, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Summer World Travel:  Australia, New Zealand, PNG
Summer World Travel:  Asia

And so, our fourth week of our 'travels' took us to the Caribbean.  Here we visit Costa Rica, the Bahamas, and Colombia.

July 25 and 16 - Costa Rica

We read the clues.  Then we colored our flags and stamps.

Listened to the national anthem. 

Did the 'find and name animals/plants' activity at the splash park.  Found more than 10 things.

Lunch was Casado... a plate/dish that has fried plantain, white rice, cooked black beans (I fried mine with some sauteed onions, garlic, and in fat with salt and pepper, fried fish, and a cabbage salad (used a mixture of equal parts oil and cider vinegar with added sugar, salt, and pepper, and garlic powder.  I didn't measure).  The links I used for this are here, here, and here.

I made a version of Refrescos using field berries (instead of just blackberries) and milk.

We watched 'Cristo Me Ama' or Jesus Loves me in Spanish.  Here is one of kids, and here is an animated one

Bahamas July 27 and 28

After reading the clues, we colored stamps and flags, found country on the map.

We watched video on sloop sailing and another with kids.

We looked and listened to my conch shell

I made Caribbean Peas and Rice .

We told stories around a 'fake fire':

• A -  "I cannot tell a story."
• So, I told a story first.  I told the kids about when a friend and I found a red log.  Well... she thought it might be a good idea to walk on it, but I was scared to.  When she stepped onto the log, the red started moving, and she started screaming.  They were red ants.  My mom had to put her in the tub to get rid of them all.
• Bram -  Doing my best to quote his story... "At (a friend)'s party, there was a little boy there, and he took my sucker out of my mouth and put it in his mouth, and I needed a new sucker.  Then he gave mine back.  After it had been in his mouth!  And we had a pillow fight."
• M - Once again, the story is best straight from their mouths, but this will have to do."At (a friend)'s house we found an old laptop, so we had the idea to draw our own laptops, and that's how I got so many paper laptops.  And we made a fort.  It was fun."  And yes, she has many a paper laptop, paper phone, paper everything.
• A - This was the most imaginative!  "M is a dragon.  No.  Bram is a dragon.  Yeah, Bram is a dragon."  I love her matter of fact way of saying it, too.

I made coconut cookies.

I made a Johnny Cake for breakfast 

Listened to the national anthem - 'March on, Bahamaland' (and we noticed it sounds very similar to 'Oh Canada')

The kids made paper/cardboard fish with paperclips, fishing rods with sticks/string/magnets, and fished in the living room 'blanket pond'.  For hours.

We prayed:

• M - that the Christians will tell others about God, like missionaries.
• Bram - that they will believe in God and become Christians and believe the Bible.
• A- sounded like another language.

We made crab sandwiches for supper.

Jamaica - July 29 and 30

The kids colored maps and stamps after reading the clues and finding the country on our map.

We watched the Jamaica National Anthem, Jamaica, Land We Love.

I made Jamaican banana bread ( don't follow the baking directions of 375 for 1 hour.  Do 350 for 45 minutes to start.  Mine burned terribly at this rate)

We bought Jamaican Beef Patties but there is a recipe for them here.

We made Caribbean chicken.

We also had the Jamaican drinks we bought (pineapple soda, and ginger beer) and hubby bought a Caribbean jerk sauce for his chicken.

We played Dandy Shandy a little bit.

We read some of a book in the Library with pictures about Jamaica

We did the activity of guessing what some Patois expressions were in English.

We prayed.

We watched a tourist video with written info and pictures about 14 tourist attractions

We looked up the Giant Swallowtail Butterfly (they stay in Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park).



I really hope that these links are useful to anyone looking for a little extra fun to use in this 'excursion'.  Please let me know in the comments.