The Educational Summer Vacation: Studying Democratic Republic of the Congo

I'm aware that today is officially the first day of autumn. But I'm obviously struggling to keep up, and if I want to post about our final country of our Educational Summer Vacation 2026 on the fall equinox, then I will!

When the kids chose countries to learn about for the summer, my 10-year-old decided to be funny and choose countries that all have "Republic" in the title, the last of which was Democratic Republic of the Congo. Joke's on him, though, because the DRC is actually pretty cool.

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you buy something using one of those links, the cost stays the same to you but I receive a small commission for referring you.

Monday

First, let's clear up what country Democratic Republic of the Congo actually is. Look at a world map, and you'll see that there are two similarly-named Congo countries right next to each other. Their capitols, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, sit right across from the Congo River from each other, making them the two closest neighboring capitol cities in the world.

Orange = Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC or Congo-Kinshasa.)
Green = Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville.)

Sometimes people call both countries "the Congo" because they're in the Congo Basin. Or because they don't really know African geography. Or because both countries used to be part of the historic Kingdom of Kongo (I did spell that correctly.)

Anyway, I don't think my 10-year-old knew any of that when he picked Democratic Republic of the Congo, but look at that: we're already learning stuff and we haven't even gotten started yet. 

My kids drew the flag of the DRC, and then we learned about the country. The land itself is rich in resources but 70% of the population falls below the national poverty line. 

We watched this 3-minute intro video to the DRC:

Then we read Democratic Republic of the Congo, a colorful picture book introducing unique things about the DRC and using a few words from Lingala, Tshiluba, and Swahili.

Tuesday

Have I said how much I love the Who Is book series? Of course I have. Well, they have one called Where Is the Congo? and we read chapter 1 today to learn about the land and animals. The book Trekking in the Congo Rainforest is also excellent, like an adult's book but with pictures. I started it with the kids and left them to finish it on their own (which I know they did because they told me later how to tell if a hippo is mad.)

We learned that the Congo River is the deepest river in the world, and also one of the most dangerous as explained in this short video.

Most of the animal species I know of that only live in one place in the world are isolated on islands, but I was surprised to learn that there are two animals who only live in the Congo rainforest (not counting zoos): bonobos and okapis.

Bonobos, to me, look a lot like chimpanzees. There are physical differences (bonobos have more slender builds, darker faces, and a hairstyle with a middle part) but the more striking differences to me were social. Bonobos are matriarchal and also are sometimes called the "hippie" primates because they don't fight.

Okapis are bizarre animals,. They're related to giraffes but kind of look like a cross between a zebra, a horse, and an anteater. They also only live in the Congo Rainforest, and really only in a tiny portion of the Congo Rainforest called the Ituri Forest.

After watching videos about bonobos and okapis, I asked my kids to pick one and write a story about it, in the style of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. 

The best opening line of a work of literature ever has to be "If you give an okapi a bat guano, he's going to ask for some herbs..."

At the end of the day, I gave the kids Gorilla Dawn by Gill Lewis (for ages 9-14) and picked up Emerald Labyrinth: A Scientist's Adventures in the Jungles of the Congo for my 22-year-old to read while she was home for the summer from college. As a scientist, I thought she'd be interested.

Wednesday

70% of the world's cobalt, a key ingredient in the lithium batteries that run basically all of our electronics, come from the DRC. It seems ironic that in the country where it comes from, only 10% of the population has access to electricity at all and only 2% of the roads are paved. 

 

There are other valuable minerals that come from the DRC, including gold, tantalum, tungsten, and tin. It's one of the richest countries for minerals. Again, ironic. In a sad way.

Another valuable export in Democratic Republic of the Congo is rubber. I actually had no idea prior to this week where rubber comes from, but it comes from trees, kind of like how you tap maple trees for syrup.

My kids and I watched this TED-Ed video about the Rubber Terror of the late 1800s, but I wouldn't recommend it for younger than middle school, and even then you should probably screen this video because it's pretty dark.

If my kids had been older, we might've spent a day discussing the scramble for Africa, the European exploitation of people and resources there, and the African rulers who participated in and profited off the slave trade. But they're not, and it was a little heavy, so we pivoted to something lighter and loosely related to what we'd been learning about: making a DIY bouncy ball.

True, no actual rubber was used in this activity. But the point was to have fun, because they're kids and it's summer vacation. 

We followed this tutorial, using school glue, borax, and food coloring.

For some reason, the yellow bouncy ball did not solidify at all and remained a gloppy mess. My son basically smeared it all over his hands and arms, and said it was the most fun he'd had all day.

The blue bouncy ball was a little more successful, but it stained my 10-year-old's hands for an entire day after that.

Thursday

Today, we continued with chapter 2 of Where Is the Congo? and learned about the Mbutu pygmies. The average male height is 4'11." It was a little hard to find resources to learn more, but this video was well-researched and interesting even though it was just pictures with a voiceover.

One of the traditional arts is Mbuti barkcloth art, like that seen here. We were fresh out of fig tree bark, but we are becoming masters of substitution after 14 years of The Educational Summer Vacation and the kids had a lot of fun approximating the look by crumpling up paper bags, smoothing them out, dipping them in water, and pounding them flat with a mallet and drying them in the sun.

This part may not have been completely necessary, but the boys sure did enjoy it.

Once it was dry, they painted geometric patterns on the "barkcloth."

They had to mix together a few colors of paint to get exactly what they wanted here, and I overheard one of them say completely unironically, "Just what I was going for! An inky black and an acacia brown." I've given birth to Manny Delgado from Modern Family.

We finished off the day by reading A Refugee's Journey from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was a really child-friendly way to talk about the unrest and violence in DRC without scaring them.

Friday

In Democratic Republic of the Congo they speak French, but there are also four other national languages: Kikongo, Lingala, Swahili, Tshiluba. 

My boys and I followed this video to learn some phrases in Kikongo, and then I put on this cute animated song teaching "hello," "how are you?" and "very good" in Swahili. 

My boys just about died because they're going into 5th and 7th grade already and they're too old for this, but we all learned something (even if it was against their will.) Be careful, it will get stuck in your head for days.

That night, my husband made mikate using this recipe. Outside of the DRC, you might hear mikate called beignets or puff-puff.

Phillip is always up for trying a new donut-esque recipe, since donuts are the thing he misses most from his old life (i.e: before cutting out gluten.) We used Bob's Red Mill gluten-free baking flour and these seemed to turn out just fine with the substitution. I know because they disappeared pretty quickly.

We ate them while listening to Congolese rumba and it was a pretty nice end to the summer, to be honest.

Soon afterward, we found ourselves back in another fast-moving school year routine, just like that. But we enjoyed our week learning about the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Not only do we know now where we can go to see okapis and bonobos, we can also interrupt people with "Um, actually..." when someone says something about the Congo and clearly doesn't know they're talking about two separate countries.

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The Educational Summer Vacation: Studying Malaysia

Since 2012, my kids and I have been learning about countries of the world during summer vacation. You can read about how it started here (at the time, I thought we were doing it for just that one summer) or you can follow along and study Malaysia with us!

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links in this post. If you click them and buy something, the cost stays the same to you but I will receive a small commission for referring you. Thank you!

Monday

While the kids found Malaysia on the big wall map, I told them a little bit about the country. Thirty-two million people live in Malaysia, and it's actually two separate land masses: Peninsular Malaysia and Eastern Malaysia on the island of Borneo. 

In the past, the kids also would've filled out the passport pages I made for them but they didn't want to this time. At ages 10 and 12, they've almost outgrown doing The Educational Summer Vacation so I'm not going to push it.

If you're from the U.S., the flag of Malaysia is going to look a little familiar. They didn't copy us, though. It's inspired by the flag design of the East India Company, which also looks suspiciously like the U.S. flag. So maybe we copied the idea?

 The 14 stripes and the 14 points of the star represent each of the 13 states and the national government. The blue is for the Malay people, the yellow is for the Malay rulers, the star is for unity and the cresent is for Islam.

We watched a travel vlog on Malaysia to get a feel for the country and what it's like there. Then we read a picture book called Kancil and the Crocodiles, where a trickster named Sang Kancil the mousedeer fooled some crocodiles into making a bridge so he could get to a tree full of rambutan fruit. (He's a regular character in Southeast Asian folktales.)

As we were reading the story I recognized the picture of the rambutan and said, "Hey! I've seen those at the grocery store!" So the next time I went shopping I picked some up. 

Not super-ripe... but this is New England, not Southeast Asia. I'm okay with it.

They came with instructions on how to eat them, which I appreciated. First, you saw through the thick  spiky/hairy red skin. Inside, there's a squishy oval about the size of an eyeball. You squeeze it out of the skin, pop it into your mouth, and then spit out the pit inside. I thought the fruit tasted like a grape, only milder. 

My husband loved rambutan and wants to buy them every week, the 12-year-old couldn't get past the freaky appearance to even try one. Everyone else was in the middle.

Tuesday

One of the most iconic landmarks in Malaysia is the Petronas Towers in the capital, Kuala Lumpur. It's twin towers connected by a skybridge, and they were once that tallest buildings in the world.

 

My 12-year-old is really into architecture right now, so we watched this video on the engineering of the Petronas Towers  and then I asked him to use his hand-me-down set of fancy architecture Legos to build a replica. 

He said he only had enough pieces for one, and we could just imagine the other one and the skybridge.  

Just north of Kuala Lumpur is Batu Caves, a series of limestone caves that was developed into a Hindu shrine in the 1890s. There's a giant gold statue of Lord Murugan (the Hindu god of war, victory, and wisdom) and 272 rainbow steps to climb in order to reach the cave.

(My 10-year-old was especially impressed with this drone flyover video of the caves, when the drone zips through the little window on top of one of the buildings.)

In Northern Malaysia, there's a place called Eagle Square. This site has a virtual tour, but be aware that your kids will 100% get frustrated that they can't move around in it like a video game, they can just look around.

Near Pengang (also north of Kuala Lumpur) is a place called George Town. George Town is a popular tourist destination not only for of the architecture, but also for the street art you can see everywhere. 

We checked out some examples in this blog post, where the artist puts a real bike or swing or chair in front of a wall and then paints something on the wall to complement it. I asked my kids to creatively combine a drawing and a 3D object, and this is what my 10-year-old came up with:

Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel from Ice Age.

Wednesday

The half of Malaysia that is in Borneo is about 60% rainforest and is famous for outdoor adventure and incredible wildlife.   

For example, there are 238 species of birds in Borneo! I knew my 12-year-old would be interested in that. He's gone crazy with the Merlin app and now when we're out and about, he'll hear a distant bird call, incline his ear, and announce to us all, "That's a rose-breasted grosbeak." He's an old soul.

We read about a refuge in Borneo that rehabilitates and releases orphaned orangutans in the book How to Babysit an Orangutan and then I also gave the kids Adventures of Riley: Operation Orangutan to read on their own time. Another one, which I don't think they read but they theoretically could have, was Undaunted: The Wild Life of Birute Mary Galdikas and Her Fearless Quest to Save Orangutans.

Another interesting animal to see in Borneo is the proboscis monkey, and the kids really appreciated the sound effects in this video:

In Borneo's rainforests you might also glimpse the rafflesia flower, which is called the "corpse flower" because it stinks like rotten meat! The kids remembered it from when we studied Indonesia, though, so we didn't spend too much time on it.

For lunch, we had the national dish of Malaysia, nasi lemak. It's essentially Southeast Asian charcuterie, and therefore super simple to make. Especially because I cheated and used frozen chicken tenders to substitute for Malay fried chicken.

Not authentic but we tried.

Nasi lemak starts with coconut rice served in the center of the plate in a dome, surrounded with cucumber slices, hardboiled eggs, and peanuts. One of mine is allergic to peanuts so he had almonds. And in place of spicy sambal, which is time-consuming and my kids wouldn't eat it anyway, we made a fake substitute out of sauteed onions, ketchup, soy sauce, and brown sugar. Malaysian grandmas, don't come for me. I did what I had to do.

Thursday

Islam is the national religion of Malaysia, so I grabbed At the Mosque (Worship With Me) and Muslim Mosque from the library, and had the 10- and 12-year-old pick one to read and report to me on what they learned. 

We watched some footage of the National Mosque, Masjid Negara, and the famous Pink Putra Mosque. They were recognizing the features they learned about in the books, although it was unclear to us where the minaret was on the National Mosque.

Of course, there's obviously religious diversity in Malaysia, since yesterday we learned about the giant Hundu shrine at Batu Cave. So we also looked at Kek Lok Si, the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia:

The kids didn't know very much about Buddhism so we watched this 5-minute intro to Buddhism video. I would describe the style of this video as "drinking from the firehose." They paused it multiple times to ask questions, including "wait a minute... so no one knows if Nirvana is actually a thing because once you find out, you're dead?" It was a big day with lots of thoughts.

After the video, we took out their Keva planks (I love these things) and I challenged them to build either a mosque or a Buddhist temple. They chose to work together and build a temple.

Friday

Malay is considered a relatively easy language for English-speakers to learn. There are no tones, no conjugations, no verb tenses, no articles, no noun genders, and it's written in the Latin alphabet we already know.

I told the kids about a few fun features, like how you repeat a word to pluralize it ('child' is 'budak' but 'children' is 'budak-budak') and then we watched a video teaching 30 common Malay words and phrases until they got bored.

I usually try to plan a fun activity based around the language, but I was running out of steam at this point in the summer and I knew that my brother- and sister-in-law who both served religious missions in Malaysia were coming to visit us in a few weeks, so I figured that the kids could ask them some questions then and called it good.

This summer is going by so fast, but I'm glad I could make the most of it by planning a fun week for my kids learning about Malaysia. I love it when their interests (like the birding and the building) intersect with the things we learn, and hopefully connecting the different countries with their interests will help them remember for longer. And at the very least, if they don't, then I still will.

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The Educational Summer Vacation: Studying the Dominican Republic

At the beginning of the summer, my two youngest kids (ages 10 and 12) picked a few countries to spend a week learning about! We've been doing this for years, and I can't tell you how many times my kids answer a tricky trivia question or wow their friends with an obscure fact that they learned "from doing countries." It's also very cool to have them exposed to more than what they see in our neighborhood and at school.

This week my 10-year-old picked the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is half of an island called Hispaniola; the other half is Haiti. They're pretty different even though they're right together, but I guess that's another story for another week.

There are affiliate links in this post. If you click them and buy something, the cost stays the same to you but I will receive a small commission for referring you. Thanks!

Monday

We started like always, finding the Dominican Republic on our wall map and drawing the country's flag.

The flag was adopted in 1844. The red and blue are from Haiti, which once occupied it. The white cross is the symbol of peace, and the Bible on the crest is open to the verse "and truth shall make you free."

In previous years the kids would have also filled out a page of their passports, but I guess mine are too old and cool to do that anymore. Here are free printable ones if yours are not.

This dramatic video introduced the kids to the natural beauty of the Dominican Republic and life there:

 

The country is not without its problems, though. There's a lot of poverty. And tropical storms and hurricanes also plague DR, not just by causing damage and injury, but by washing tons of garbage onto the beaches. (Here's a really short clip of the garbage on Montesinos Beach after Tropical Storm Beryl in 2018.)

Another thing that the Dominican Republic is known for? Baseball. Ten percent of the players in the MLB are from the DR, which is pretty wild if you think about it. We read in a library book called Home Run Kings about one of the most famous, Sammy Sosa, whose name even I know (even though I can't usually remember which sport is the Superbowl and which one is the World Series.)

One of the most popular pastimes in the Dominican Republic is dominoes. We have a double-12 set that we play often, but I think the version we always play is called Mexican Train. We learned how to play by Dominican rules, pared down our dominoes set, and played a few rounds.

The kids thought it was okay but they missed the rules we usually play by. They're creatures of habit.

To end the day, I gave them a few books by Julia Alvarez that had to do with the Dominican Republic:

• How Tia Lola Came to Stay (fiction, ages 8-12)
• Before We were Free (YA novel for grades 7+)

Tuesday 

This 3-minute introduction to the history of the Dominican Republic was just right for the attention spans of my 10- and 12-year-old.

The Dominican Republic was originally populated by the Taíno people, who left behind rock paintings you can see today in numerous tourist sites, like those in Cueva de las Maravillas. We looked up information about the rock paintings (careful, there are probably some you want to skip discussing with your kids.)

After Christopher Columbus discovered the island and named it Hispaniola ("little Spain") in 1942, the natives were taken advantage of and kind of wiped out. Most people who live in DR today are descended from Spanish colonizers or the African slaves who they brought there.

The Dominican Republic gained independence in 1844, but remnants of Spanish colonization remain. In fact, the disputed grave of Christopher Columbus is on the island. We watched this video tour of Faro a Colón ("Columbus Lighthouse") and talked about where each of us thought his bones really ended up, in Spain or in the Dominican Republic:

Then we learned about Fortaleza Ozama, a Spanish fortress from 1505 with 6-foot thick walls. We checked out this post with pictures, and then the kids designed an ultimate protection fortress of their own creation.

I'm not totally convinced that my 12-year-old knows who M.C. Hammer is, but he named this hammer-shaped fortress after him so I guess that's something:

Guarded by robotic soldiers and something called a "black hole launcher." Sounds terrifying.

My 10-year-old wasn't to be outdone, though, and built a tower connected to the moon that was protected by lightning rods, pressure-activated missile launchers, and a pool of lava that could also blast off into space and then self-destruct in case someone managed to infiltrate it.

I hope neither of these kids work in defense when they grow up. They're both insane.

Wednesday

Did you know that a lot of Spanish words come from Arawak, the language of the Taíno people (for example, iguana comes from an Arawak word meaning "big lizard.")

We listened to this song from Calico Spanish about farm animals and their noises (I think it would have been fun to sing and dance to it as suggested, but those days are gone for my big kids) and then they filled out this AI-generated worksheet:

We also wanted to explore the music of the Dominican Republic. We learned how to dance merengue, and for days afterward my kids were laughing and saying "Speed that thang up" in a robot voice like in this video:

We read picture book called Angélica and la Güira, and then we decided to make one ourselves. (I'd always heard it called a güiro, so I looked it up: a güira is made of metal and a güiro is made of wood. So there you go.) 

I'm not a crafty person, but this tutorial was absolutely my kind of craft. You literally take a tin can or a plastic water bottle with ridges, and run a pencil across it to make a percussion sound. We played them to a merengue video. 

Bachata is another musical style also from the Dominican Republic. We listened to this playlist to hear the sound of it, but if your kids are actually Spanish-speaking you should probably pick another playlist with more appropriate lyrics.

Thursday

Every February, the Dominican Republic celebrates Canival with parades and costumed characters. It's a total party. Here are some of the standard characters you might see in a Carnival parade.

I started out the week with grand plans to make papier mache masks with the kids, but it's a little too complicated so it didn't happen... but it could for you!

Instead, we bought green plantains at the store and my husband followed this recipe to make a DR comfort food called mangu. It was pretty good! Especially since I didn't have to make it.

Friday

The Dominican Republic has some really fun animals. The solenodon (which looks like a shrew) is a venemous mammal only found on the islands of Hispaniola and Cuba. We watched this video to learn more about solendons.

The jaragua lizard, also found in DR, is the world's smallest lizard. It can fit on a dime. 

Also, humpback whales have chosen the waters around the Dominican Republic as a great place to get together during the winter breeding season, which makes it the best place in the world to go whale watching. 

I hope the videographers for this documentary on humpback whales got some kind of award for their work, because it was amazing. 

 

Afterward, I had the boys go outside and compare the lengths of each of those animals, from the 50-foot humpback whale to the 16mm jaragua lizard, in the driveway with a length of yarn. It kept them busy for a while, and tricked them into playing outside afterward when they ordinarily would've been inside reading or begging for video games.

Saturday

One more thing DR is known for is Dominican amber. It's fossilized tree resin from an extinct tree, and it's generally accepted as the most clear and beautiful kind of amber. Sometimes there are even fossilized insects or flowers inside.

I bought a bar of glycerin soap at the grocery store, and using this process from a library book called Dominican Republic by Mary Engler, the kids made "Dominican amber."

They melted down half of the glycerin soap bar in small containers, and inserted an artifact of their choice from the yard as it started to cool and harden.

The 10-year-old chose a leaf from a holly bush:

And the 12-year-old used an acorn from the yard:

It was a fun little craft, and a fun end to the week studying the Dominican Republic.

Remember how I said random knowledge from our weeks studying countries always pops up? Just after we'd finished our week in the Dominican Republic, I passed a semi on the freeway with a picture of the Dominican flag on the back. A week ago I would've wondered what country it was and had to Google it. You just never know when the things we learn are going to come in handy.

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The Educational Summer Vacation: Studying the Czech Republic

How do you give your kids structure during the long weeks of summer vacation? Some people do it by planning themed outings, some people do it by going to the beach every day, and some people sign up for summer camp. 

Honestly, my kids might prefer any one of those. But what I do is ask the kids to choose different countries in the world, and we spend a week studying and learning all we can about each one. You can read how it started here, or you can just start right here and read along with what we did this week: studying the Czech Republic.

There are affiliate links in this post. If you click them and buy something, the cost stays the same to you but I will receive a small commission for referring you. Thanks!

The Czech Republic, is also called Czechia. Historically, it was known as Bohemia. So this week was exciting for me because I've seen "Bohemia" in my family tree and never knew exactly where that was. I just knew it was... Europe. Ish.

Monday

We started by locating the Czech Republic on the big wall map. In previous years I made blank passport pages they could fill out with the name of the country and all its neighbors, the capital, and any rivers or mountains or interesting things they could see about it. But this year they didn't want to. (Free printable is here, though.)

The kids looked up the flag online and were relieved to finally see a country with no complicated crests... just straight lines they could make with a ruler:

As I was putting this up on the wall I asked my 10-year-old, "Is this right side up?" He answered "I don't know, let me Czech" and then laughed and laughed. And then he really went to go check because we couldn't remember.

Prague is the capital, and it's sometimes called "city of a hundred spires." It's a city known for its architecture and the famous astronomical clock in the center. (A video for older kids on how to read the clock is here.)

We watched this general overview of the Czech Republic:

And then we read a few books. First we read This is Prague by Olga Černá, and then we read The Three Golden Keys by Peter Sís.

After these two books, we came to the conclusion that the Czech sensibility is... different. I think it's kind of like how Americans don't really "get" British humor: it's not bad, it's just that we don't have the shared cultural understanding to make complete sense of it. And yes, I'm also basing my opinion on all the Franz Kafka (another Czech) I read in college as an English major.

Tuesday

Besides speaking the language of absurd surrealism, the people of the Czech Republic also speak Czech. It's widely recognized as one of the world's hardest languages to learn. 

We watched this video called 5 Easy Czech Phrases for Beginners:

Let me tell you, I loved how Zuzana really exaggerates and over-enunciates each syllable, goes slow, and breaks down every sound. Because a lot of language tutorials don't do this enough, forgetting that they might be asking you to hear and make sounds that don't even exist in your native language. Ten out of ten for CzechbyZuzka.

Fun fact: some Czech words have no vowels, like this famous tongue twister that goes "strč prst skrz krk." It means something like "put your finger through your throat." 

Using this children's illustrated Czech dictionary from the library and some Post-It notes, the kids labeled things around the house in English and Czech. I asked them to do five Post-Its and expected them to be bored by then, but they kept going and going.

I was finding Post-It labels for days afterward in random places.

Of course they wanted to label me, too.

And then the 14-year-old stuck a label on the back of her 18-year-old brother's head, who was busy playing video games. The label said "friend." I'm not crying, you're crying.

I got a book of Czech fairy tales with the intention of reading one each night to the kids, but it kind of didn't happen. I ended up just giving them the book today to peruse at their leisure.

Wednesday

The Czech Republic has a ridiculous density of castles, with Prague Castle being the largest ancient castle in the world. The kids spent a while looking at this Castles Cross-Sections book and then we watched a video on Czech castles and chateaus.

With that foundation, they set off to design and build their own castles in Minecraft. 

The 10-year-old made a castle with a library of floating candles inside and two sheep pens in the back, one with upside-down sheep and one with rainbow color-changing sheep. Here's a video tour:

The 12-year-old spent days contructing a walled castle complex on an island with a palace, an armory, a well, guard barracks, and a pool with a waterfall. And then, in a disappointing turn of events, he accidentally deleted it. That's life, I guess, and he got over it. But I still wish I had taken some screenshots first, it was actually impressive.

Thursday

Today we talked about the music of the Czech Republic. There is a lot to cover here, but we tried to scratch the surface, at least.

First, the polka. Supposedly the word comes from the Czech "půlka" meaning "half step." I remember being forced to learn the polka in middle school P.E., do they make kids learn to dance in gym anymore?

We watched this instructional video and gave it a shot: 

Classical music also has deep roots in the Czech Republic. I looooove the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák (my 20-year-old is a violinist so I hear him all the time). 

Smetana's Vltava (The Moldau, in German) is also very famous. Bedřich Smetana wrote this in 1874 as part of a 6-movement piece celebrating his homeland, Bohemia. This movement is the most famous one. It tells the story of the Vltava, the longest river in the Czech Republic and it's really fun to listen to with kids if you tell them what they're listening for.

You can use this listening map or print out this AI-generated list of the movements:

1. The Two Springs: The piece begins with rippling, cascading flutes and clarinets that represent the bubbling Teplá Vltava and Studená Vltava (warm and cold streams)
2. The River: The two streams unite, and the main, sweeping Vltava melody—one of the most famous themes in classical music—swells as the young river grows
3. Forest and Hunt: The music transitions to a hunting scene, characterized by noble horn calls resonating through the dense woodland
4. Peasant Wedding: The river passes a village where a joyful, rustic Czech polka plays, signaling a lively local celebration
5. Moonlight / Dance of the Water Nymphs: The tempo slows and the strings soften to portray the moon rising over the water. Mermaids and nymphs dance and sparkle in the rippling moonlit waves
6. The St. John’s Rapids: The music grows chaotic, dramatic, and stormy as the river plunges into a rocky, churning gorge
7. The Vyšehrad Castle: As the rapids calm, the river broadens. The sweeping main theme returns majestically as the river flows through Prague, passing the historic Vyšehrad fortress
8. The Departure: The music fades into the distance as the river flows onward to join the Elbe River

Friday

At lunchtime we made bramboráky, Czech potato pancakes, using this recipe.

The Czech Republic is also the #1 consumer of beer in the world. I don't drink but I understand that there are different kinds of beer and Pilsner beer comes from the Czech Republic. So... I gave the kids some root beer to eat with their pancakes.

While they were eating, we watched a compilation of Czech-born players in the NHL making goals (there's officially a video of everything on the Internet now) because hockey is such a national pastime.

And then, because my kids are slow eaters, we watched a few episodes of a famous cartoon called Krteček, which is kind of like the Czech Republic's Mickey Mouse. (Back in the early days, before he talked.)

Saturday

Today we talked about WWII and how it affected the Czech Republic. We read Stars of the Night, about the Kindertransport that rescued 669 Jewish kids by sending them out of Czechoslovakia to the U.K. before the borders closed in 1939. 

The Czech Republic had a rough time. They had one of the longest occupations by the Nazis (6 years) and then came under the communist rule of the Soviet Bloc for another 41 years. 

Communism involves a lot of censorship, propaganda, and rules. Theater was heavily censored and directed by the government, if not outright banned, but puppet shows were mostly unregulated because they were seen as children's entertainment. That might be one of the reasons why Czech puppetry is on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. It's a long-standing Czech tradition.

We watched a video about it, and then followed this video tutorial by @MakingWithEmil to make a marionette using materials you can get at the dollar store:

I loved this guy, he was so excited about sharing the joy of marionettes with kids. It was too wholesome.

I was surprised, actually, by how long these boys were occupied with the marionettes they made. They're not exactly crafty kids, but this held their attention for a lot longer than I expected. In fact, this was a few weeks ago and my table is still full of marionette stuff.

The strings were really easy to get tangled, unfortunately. It helped once they realized that whenever they weren't using the marionettes they should hang them off the side of the table instead of just laying them down on top.

I asked them to put on a show for me and my 12-year-old made his marionette scale laboriously up the wall, hit the light switch, and then fall dramatically to his death. The 10-year-old wasn't too interested in making a show, he wanted to design and redesign his marionette, adjusting the strings and getting everything just right. Maybe eventually he'll be satisfied and then it can stop being our dinner centerpiece.

Our week studying the Czech Republic was a great week! From cooking to marionettes to classical music, we covered a lot of ground. And the boys even got extended mom-sanctioned Minecraft time, which was probably the best part of it from their point of view.

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