Year 3: Exploring Countries and Cultures, Olá Brasil!

     We've spent the last 3 weeks in Brazil and it's been such a blast.  The kids learned plenty about the Amazon rainforest and its animals, along with all the countries of South America.

     Here they are looking at our wall map in week 9 so that they could label their maps:

     Here they are a few days later helping each other label North and South America:

     By our last week in Brazil, week 11, they were able to label all the countries on North and South America, with zero help in 3 minutes and 51 seconds.

     We also finished reading YWAM's Nate Saint.  I can't relay to you just how much we love reading these stories together as a family.  We get to hear how God's hands were (and still is) on those who serve Him.  This story in particular, showed how God used a tragedy to bring others to Christ.  Even The Principal got choked up reading it.

     We also had our Brazilian feast.  Luckily, I have a wonderful Brazilian friend who gave me her recipe for Brigadeiros ( a Brazilian candy similar to a truffle) and also directed me to our local Brazilian market, a hidden gem for all things Brazilian!  Below are the kids checking out the marketplace:

     

     This is the Brigadeiros in it's cooked but cooling form:

     

     Here they are rolling the Brigadeiros into tiny balls.  The Brazilian market even had tiny cups (smaller than a mini cupcake liner) for the candy to sit in.  I read that condensed milk in Brazil is much sweeter than what we have here, thus a little candy goes a long way!

     They also made Carnival masks and I simply told them it was a party.  That's all there is to it, for now.

     Last but not least, a picture of our feast.  My husband grilled Brazilian-style steak with a Chimichurri Sauce, Feijoada (a delicious black bean stew I cooked with meat we purchased from the market), some roasted plantains and Pao de Quiejo (cheese bread).  It was all scrumptious!

     We're taking a week off, then we'll make our way through Europe!

Year 3: Exploring Countries and Cultures, O Canada!

     That was a very, very quick trip to Canada.  We didn't even get to have a Canadian feast to bid farewell to all the provinces!  (We just have so much going on, I didn't get a chance to even figure out what to make.)  You can also tell that we didn't get to decorate as much.  This was the quickest thing I could come up with to welcome my kids to Canada as they "crossed the border" into the dining room.

   
     I suppose our journey through Canada went so quickly because we had a few appointments during Week 7 and we brought homeschooling with us. Then, I was out of town during the end of Week 8, so I didn't get a chance to really close the week out with the kids.  However, I was blessed to be at our church's Women's Retreat and therefore had to call a sub:

The Principal reading aloud to our students.

          By the way, the sub made them do jumping jacks before they sat down and got to work.  They got a kick out of that!

     What both kids enjoyed about Canada was learning the French words.  They were fascinated with it and kept trying to carry on a conversation with the limited vocabulary they learned.  We finished currently reading YWAM's Cameron Townsend and I feel like my kids would be ones who would love to translate the Bible in another language.

     While at the retreat, I got to hear wonderful testimonies from a few lovely women and even received prophetic prayer.  I'd love to share that story with you sometime, but I'll save that for a separate post.

This is where our retreat was.

This was waiting for me when I got home.

     That's about it.  A bit short, eh?