This year we have been learning about different countries all around the world. Our next European country we studied was Sweden. If you have been following along our around the world studies this year, this will probably be my shortest blog post yet. It was so hard to find any books based in Sweden that weren’t just about St. Lucia Day. All of the books suggested in the curriculums we are using as our spine, my library didn’t have! So, we watched some read alouds on YouTube, but mostly this was a short lesson we completed in one week.
Like all our other units, I begin introducing the country by reading about it in the book Maps and DK Countries of the World. We labeled the capital, major lakes, rivers, mountains, and neighboring countries or bodies of water in our notebooks. We always add the capital, language spoken, and population too. Next, we paint the country’s flag to hang in our schoolroom. These flags are found in Traveling the World from The Waldock Way. We love reading about children who live in each country from Children Just Like Me. For Sweden, we read about Stella and St. Lucia Day in Celebrations.
If you are covering Sweden around Christmas, An American Girl Christmas has great projects and lessons with American Girl Kirsten all about St. Lucia Day.
American Girl History: Kirsten
Books
These are the very few books I could find at our library, but there are many great ones listed in the Traveling the World guide.
Read aloud options: Meet Kirsten, Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, and Nate the Great Saves the King of Sweden by Margorie Sharmat.
Recipes
What this unit is lacking in books, it made up for in delicious recipes. We made Swedish pancakes for breakfast one morning and Swedish Meatballs for dinner one night. Below are the links to some kid friendly recipes for Sweden.
Science
We loved learning about a few animals native to Sweden; the moose and the walrus. I found plenty of great books that we enjoyed while learning about the moose. We love to read these before bedtime each night.
In our notebooks, I painted each of their hands brown and had them stamp them to make a moose. They drew the antlers and background and wrote some facts we learned after reading from the DK Encyclopedia of Animals.
For the walrus, they did THIS drawing tutorial in their notebooks and wrote a sentence or two about something they learned. They really enjoyed looking at these I Spy books called Where’s Walrus? by Stephen Savage.
Here are some fun walrus crafts you could do together: potato print walrus, paper plate walrus craft.
History
For history, we learned about the history of the Dalaecarlian horse, or Dala horse, and how they are made. We used THIS free printable to color and make 3D Dala horses.
HERE is a really cool video we watched on the Ice Hotel in Sweden.
If you read some of the picture books by Astrid Lindgren, such as The Tomten or The Tomten and the Fox, this is a super simple craft idea to make a gnome with a toilet paper roll or a gnome ornament with a paper plate and yarn.
Art
We really enjoyed learning about Carl and Karin Larsson for art history. There are many great books about him and his works:
Carl Larsson’s Home, Family, and Farm
I found THIS free coloring page of his wife and their 8 children. I had my kids paint it using colors similar to his artwork.
To end our study of Sweden we had a family movie night and watched Pippi Longstocking (1988 version.)
Although this unit was short, we had a lot of fun with it! It was nice to keep things simple, and make a lot of delicious food 😊.
Next up is my blog post for our study on Holland and all about the Netherlands!
Have a great week!
– Lindsay
Check out my past posts for all the countries we have studied this year HERE (scroll to the bottom of the post.)
See a review of the curriculum and books we have used the most while doing these studies HERE.
Thank you so much for posting your Around the World series! I’m planning on the curriculum with my son this year and your blogs have been such a huge help! Thank you!!