Read Around the World: Baltimore, Maryland

This summer we’ve been reading around the world along with this blog. It’s been fun to read stories set in other cultures and learn some interesting new facts! Here were some of my favorites (in no particular order):

Throw Your Tooth on the Roof, by Selby Beeler (nonfic). What do children around the world do when they lose a tooth?

What the World Eats, by Faith D’Aluisio (nonfic). So fascinating! Photos of what various families around the world eat and how much it costs. The disparities and variety is incredible.

Biblioburro, by Jeanette Winter (nonfic). A former teacher decides to bring books to tiny, remote villages in Colombia.

Seeds of Change: Wangari’s Gift to the World, by Jen Cullerton Johnson (nonfic). Planting trees and help Kenya. The power of a single woman.

A Little Book of Sloth, by Lucy Cooke (nonfic, sort of). Holy adorableness, Batman! Learn real stuff about sloths and look at adorable pictures of sloths and pretty much fall into a sloth-cuteness coma. Seriously.

Diary of a Wombat, by Jackie French (fic). Featuring the cutest wombat sleeping poses ever.

The Seven Chinese Sisters, by Kathy Tucker (fic). Same concept as the Five Chinese Brothers, except for fewer (no) gruesome executions.

The Empty Pot, by Demi (fic). A legend about how a wise emperor chose his heir.

The Problem with Chickens, by Bruce McMillan (fic). How a small Icelandic village keeps eggs.

As part of the journey, everyone who wants to gets to add their own little “Growing Up Around the World” entry. So here’s ours!

– Tell us about your family.

There are six of us: Mom, Dad, and four kiddos ages 8 years to 3 months. We all love to read and love hanging out together.

– Tell us about where you live and how long you’ve lived there.

We live in Maryland, just about ten minutes south of Baltimore. We’ve been here six years now. Before that, we lived in Utah.

– What do you think is unique and special about living where you do?

Fireflies! We love fireflies.

Also, duckpin bowling. It’s a lot like regular bowling, with ten pins and a ball, but the ball is smaller and lighter, without finger holes. Also, you get three throws instead of two, the pins are smaller, and the pins are not reset in between throws.

– What languages are spoken there? If it’s different from English, can you help us learn a few common phrases?

Pretty much English, although our church group also has several families from the Philippines.

– What are some traditional foods there?

Hmmm . . .  people here do seem to like fried chicken a lot. We’re close enough to the South in the USA that there’s a fair amount of “Southern food,” which usually involves frying things. :)

This was the street about three days after this
year's huge snowstorm. Good for sledding.

– Tell us about the climate where you live.

Hot and humid in the summers, cold in the winters. There can be huge snowstorms occasionally, but usually it’s just small snowstorms. Last year there was one big snowstorm over a weekend that shut down all the public schools for a whole week!

– What does school look like for the majority of kids where you live?

Pretty standard American school system—school in the morning and early afternoon, lunch break, recess, all that jazz.

– What does school look like for your family?

When possible, we like to start the day (after breakfast and such) with reading aloud together. We currently have one independent reader (the 8yo), but she likes to be read to as well, for our read-aloud time. The 5yo and 2yo love to be read to endlessly, and sometimes it’s a battle between the 2yo’s picture books and everything we’re actually reading for school. We start with scriptures and maybe some scripture-related videos. Then we usually have a couple of picture books related to what we’re studying during the week—history, musicians and artists, science, etc. Then we read a couple of chapters of a longer book. This is our favorite and most organized time of the day.

The rest of the official “school” portion is a mix of doing math (hooray for Beast Academy!) and language arts for the 8yo and 5yo while appeasing the 2yo and feeding or holding the 3mo. Usually we have one day that has the big science project on it and one day that has a bigger music or art project. Also, we have two co-ops during the regular school year.

The non-school portion of the day is whatever the kids are excited about. There’s tons of pretending games (for pretty much every book the 8yo reads, they end up playing a game where they’re children of the main characters), ooooooodles of books, playing with blocks, playing in the backyard, some TV, lots of drawing, etc.

– Are there any special festivals or traditions you’d like to tell us about related to where you live?

There probably are, but we haven’t done them yet. One great thing about this area, though, is lots of historical stuff. For example, Fort McHenry, which inspired the writing of our national anthem, is here. Baltimore is also home to Edgar Allen Poe!

Chasing the last fireflies of the year.

– If you ever had to move away from where you live, what do you think you’d miss most?

FIREFLIES! I cannot say enough good things about fireflies.

– Do you have a favorite book that takes place in your region/country?

Not so far. We’ll have to try to find one! Although the Mercy Watson books by Kate DiCamillo, set just generally in the South, are some favorites—they’re about a pig who loves toast “with a great deal of butter on it.”