Last year, my kids said they didn't want to do
the educational summer vacation.
Like many things about my kids getting older and becoming people with their
own opinions and interests, I didn't like it.
But we did other things and had a great summer.
So I was really surprised when, a few days before the end of school, my
12-year-old asked, "Can we do countries this summer?"
The first country he chose was Sri Lanka, so let's get started!
Monday
Sri Lanka is a teardrop-shaped island off the coast of India. Sometimes
it's called the "Pearl of the Indian Ocean." It's had many official names over
the years, including Serendip and Ceylan. Sri Lanka has been the official name
since 1972.
The kids didn't want to fill out passport pages this year like we
have in the past,
but
here is a link
to those pages if you want to download them and use for your kids. (I
used to hole punch the corners and just add more pages from year to
year, when my kids were into that kind of thing.)
We found it on the
giant wall map we
hang up in the summer and watched
this video
introducing us to Sri Lanka. The narrator was either AI or had a neurological disorder, but the
kids persevered.
Then we looked up the flag of Sri Lanka and drew one for the wall.
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| The flag has different dimensions than a standard sheet of printer paper, so the kids cut a strip off the bottom before coloring it. |
Lions aren't native to Sri Lanka, but the symbol and the name is
everywhere.
It goes back to a legend that Sri Lanka was founded by the son of a
princess and a lion. My kids are old enough to interrupt me with "it's
not a legend, it's a myth, a princess can't have kids with a
lion." Sigh.
I also gave the kids three books to read throughout the week, all
set in Serendib (historical Sri Lanka) and recommended for ages 8-12:
- The Boy Who Met a Whale (the 12-year-old said this was his favorite)
- The Girl Who Stole an Elephant
- The Girl Who Lost a Leopard
Ordinarily, I attempt to cook at least something from the country
we're visiting.
I used to make it from scratch, but I'm not that person anymore. I'm the
person who sees a box of this at Trader Joe's and checks "make Sri
Lankan dish" off my list:
It wasn't very good, but it was a microwave meal so we weren't expecting a
lot. Maybe next country I'll make more of an effort.
Tuesday
Sri Lanka's official language, Sinhala, is spoken by about 75% of
people. 'Sinha' means lion, so Sinhala means 'lion-like.'
It's a very pretty written text, all circles and curves:
|
| Supposedly this is a poem, but it could be Sri Lankan lorem ipsum and I wouldn't know the difference. |
The reason that Sinhala is so curvy is that anciently it was written on
palm leaves, and the rounded lines were less likely to rip the leaves
than sharp angles.
People would take the leaves, dry them, and bind them into a sort of book
that you could flip through like a Rolodex (if you know what that is,
happy 50th birthday, don't forget your multivitamin.) Here's what the palm
leaf texts looked like:
This looked pretty easy to replicate, so the kids cut up a paper grocery
bag into strips, hole punched through the middle, and bound them with
string.
With their books assembled, we used the pages to practice writing the
Sinhala alphabet.
This writing video
was slow and easy to follow, and it was narrated in Sinhala so the kids
could could hear it while they wrote. We just followed the video until
they got bored.
If your kids are still interested and would like to look into the language
spoken by the other 25% of Sri Lanka, they can use
this video
to practice their Tamil alphabet as well.
But mine were kind of done for the day.
But before we ended, I had them look up
how to say "thank you"
in Sinhala, and we tried to use it at dinnertime.
Wednesday
Sri Lanka is famous for its "great elephant gathering." It's the
largest congregation of elephants in one place in the world, which happens
as they all kind of crowd together as other water sources dry up during
the dry season.
We watched this video to learn about elephants:
Then we did a couple of activities to help them understand more about
elephants.
Elephants' wrinkled skin actually keeps them cool. It's sort of
like a sponge that holds water in the cracks, which is why elephants are
obsessed with finding mudholes or watering spots.
To demonstrate that, we poured water over a sponge and a rock, wrung out
the sponge, and put them both out in the sun to see which one held onto
water for the longest.
The sponge won.
Then we did a silly activity I called the "trunk dexterity challenge." Elephant trunks have 40,000 muscles in their trunks, and they use them
for everything from putting food and water in their mouths to
communicating with each other to snorkeling while they're swimming.
Challenge #1 was racing to pick up and put ten objects in a basket while
wearing an oven mitt with the fingers and thumb in the same hole. (African
elephants have two finger-like projections at the end of their trunk to
help with fine motor movements, but Asian elephants like those in Sri
Lanka only have one.)
|
| They each were told to grab "10 random objects smaller than a basketball" and nothing else, so some were harder to pick up and move than others. |
Challenge #2 was racing to fill up a cup using a straw and suction power,
showing how elephants drink. Elephants don't actually swallow the water in
their trunks, they suction in up and shoot it into their mouths. Or all
over their back and body if they're hot.
Which is why we did this challenge outside.
Afterward, I thanked my 14-year-old for consenting to participate in these
challenges with minimal eye-rolling.
"I realize this would've been more fun for you five or ten years ago,
but thanks for doing it for your younger brothers. They had fun."
She shrugged nonchalantly and answered, "I won, though."
Thursday
One of Sri Lanka's major exports is cinnamon, so we first watched
this video about how cinnamon is harvested:
We then asked the 14-year-old to look up cinnamon facts online, and I
learned that the stuff I buy at the grocery store isn't real cinnamon, but
a close cousin called cassia which is toxic in large amounts so that's
great.
Using our toxic cassia cinnamon, we tasted applesauce with and without
adding cinnamon.
If you wanted to do a taste test with a blindfold and have them guess
which is which, that would work, too.
Tea is also a huge crop in Sri Lanka. As members of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we don't drink tea from the tea plant,
but herbal tea is okay so I bought some cinnamon-flavored rooibos
on Amazon and let the kids try some.
|
| The delivery guy drove over here sitting on the box, I think. |
At first, I just made one mug of tea so we could all try a sip, but I told
the kids they could use another teabag to make their own mug if they
really liked it.
They did not.
The last thing we studied today was Sigiriya, which tanslates to "Lion
Rock."
It's a 5th century fortress built on a 600-high foot rock, and like the
pyramids it's kind of a mystery just how they did it.
Friday
A few last pieces of culture to cover today!
We watched this traditional Kandyan dance (Kandy is a city in Sri
Lanka):
The national sport of Sri Lanka is volleyball, but the most popular
sport is cricket.
My 12-year-old surprised me by saying that he knew how to play cricket
(apparently he plays with some friends at school during free time in
gym??) but none of the rest of us did, so we watched
this instructional video and then went out in the yard to give it a try.
Oh, and Sri Lanka's cricket team is called — what else? — the
Lions.
I wish we'd had just a little more time and energy to dig deeper into
Sri Lanka, because there is so much there. But I'm trying to embrace my limitations and just enjoy this
summer that I have to learn about countries with my kids. I don't know
how many more years they'll still want to do this with me!
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