In November, our Geography Club studied England. I planned it this way so we could also have an emphasis on Thanksgiving as our Geography club met the Tuesday before Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Here are the plans that I used.

Geo Treckers – England

Welcome! Talk about England. Find on map/globe. Show flag of England.

Places in England: Tour — talk about London tower & the ravens. I used the information in this link and also showed the following “Meet the Raven” video to the group.)

 

Introduce Royal family — look at pictures of current royal family, talk about the kings and queens of the past.

Read “Queen Victoria’s Bathing Machine” by Gloria Whelan

The George’s — We watched this video based on the  “Horrible Histories: Born to Rule” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjgaB0IJRbc

Game: Queenie, Queenie

A person is picked to be the “queenie,” and that person turns her back to everyone else. The “queenie” then throws the ball over her shoulder and one of the other players needs to catch it or pick it up. Everyone, except the “queenie”, puts their hands behind their backs so that the “queenie” doesn’t know who has the ball. The “queenie” then turns around and everyone shouts:

“Queenie, Queenie who’s got the ball??

The “queenie” has to guess who has the ball. If the person with the ball is the last one to be picked, that person becomes the new “queenie.” I gave my kids 3 chances to get it right in order to keep the game moving quickly.

Robin Hood — read story — perhaps a reaction against the leaders of that time? (I read a copy of the tale of Robin Hood that was on the shelf at our library.)

Another reaction against the leaders led to something we are celebrating this week!  (I talked about the Pilgrims and then read the next book.)

Read “You Wouldn’t Want to Sail on the Mayflower” by Peter Cook.

Game: Please Mr. Crocodile (We pretended that we were crossing a big ocean . . . .)

One person is ‘Mr Crocodile’ and the other people say:

“Please Mr Crocodile

can we cross your Golden River?”.

‘Mr. Crocodile’ replies with something like, “Only if you are wearing something blue”.

If you are wearing that color you can move on one step. When you reach the other side, you are then the next ‘Mr. Crocodile’.

Talk about tea — they still take time during the day to have “tea”.  Find some fun tea facts here.

Snack: Make scones and serve with tea.  (I actually had my 13 year old son make the scones ahead of time. He did a pretty good job!) I brought in a couple different types of jam and let the kids put jam on their scones if they wanted.  Find a recipe here.

Draw: Let kids choose pictures to draw from London. Provide colored pencils and paper and encourage them to make cool pics!!!! I found a whole bunch of directions here, printed them off and let the kids create.

Play the Beatles while they work.

Additional Activities Kids Can Do On Their Own:

Practice speaking with a British accent.

Have a tea party.

Make a model of the Mayflower.

Research Stonehenge. Use your own rocks to try to recreate the structure.

Research the royal family. Write your own story about what you think it would be like to be a member of the royal family.

Make your own medieval newspaper.

Dance along to some British music!

Make a tea cup candle. Find instructions here: http://www.thecraftycrow.net/2010/03/crafts-around-the-world-england.html

Read Winnie-the-Pooh or Paddington Bear. Try your hand at writing your own bear story!

Research the English Channel.

Research English sports. Make a powerpoint presentation or video about the different types of sports they participate in. Try playing one of them!

Choose a famous landmark and make a model of it using the media of your choice (legos, food, etc)

Compare and contrast the government of England with the government of the United States.

Write your own nursery rhyme.

Read (or watch) Shakespeare. Gather some friends and act out a scene from one of his plays. Record it and share it with us!

Watch “The Muppets’ Christmas Carol” (or any other version of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas story! ‘Tis the season!!!)

Find some other super fun activities here: http://www.familythemedays.ca/Themes/England.htm