Hi everyone! I am back to sharing our last few countries that we completed for our Around the World study.
Today I’m sharing our unit study of the Netherlands!
This unit study was another quick one with just a few books and simple projects. We learned all about windmills, wooden clogs, Dutch Delft plates, and tulips.
You can read a review of the curriculum we are using for our Around the World studies HERE, but for the Netherlands, I just came up with a lot on my own.
As usual, I start by introducing the country with the book Maps and DK Countries of the World. We colored and labeled the map in our notebooks and painted the country’s flag.
Books
There were some beautiful picture books we read about the Netherlands and Holland. The Hole in the Dike and The Boy Who Held Back the Sea are the same classic Dutch tale, told in different ways. Just reading one of these was sufficient enough for my kids. They also really loved Boxes for Katje, which brought up great conversations about the Netherlands post WWII.
Windmills
We couldn’t study the Netherlands and not cover windmills! I actually learned SO much about them too and I was completely wrong on what I thought they were for! There are lots of great videos on YouTube, but we watched THIS one and THIS one.
My kids really enjoyed the story Katje the Windmill Cat, which is based on a true story. After reading and watching some videos we created some windmills out of paper cups and construction paper.
I gave my kids one paper cup each and a bunch of colored construction paper. I explained what they were going to do and left them to design it however they wanted. They then chose a colored square (needs to be a perfect square) to create the windmill. You can watch a tutorial on how to make a pinwheel like this out of paper HERE. We hot glued it to the paper cup and put a dot sticker in the center. They don’t spin, but turned out so cute!
Wooden Clogs
We learned that wooden clogs are naturally water resistant, protect feet from the wet Dutch climate, and allow people to move across wet ground with ease. You can watch a simple video on how they are made HERE.
We also learned all about the history of St. Nicholas Day and the tradition of children leaving their shoes out for the spirit of St. Nicholas to fill with small candies and treats on the night of December 5th. I used this as a simple writing prompt in our notebooks. I printed THIS coloring page of wooden clogs that my kids colored. Then I had them write about what they wished St. Nicholas would fill them with.
Dutch Delft Plates
When I think Dutch, I always think of these beautiful plates and artwork! These plates were first created in Delft, Netherlands and inspired by Chinese pottery in the early 17th century. Delftware is distinguished by its blue and white hand painted ceramic pieces.
We created our own “Delft” plates with paper plates. I pulled out multiple shades of blue paint and we looked at a lot of examples on Google images. Then I left them to design lightly with a pencil and paint their plates however they wanted. You can use any white plates, I just happened to have some with blue designs on the edges already!
Tulips
The last thing we studied in our Netherlands unit was all about tulips. We read about tulips, looked up photos, and labeled a picture in our notebooks. The flower anatomy, tulip labeling page, and craft can all be found in my Spring Flower Mini Unit. The book open is the Flower Study book from The Good and the Beautiful. When you order this book it also comes with a Flower Game that we enjoyed playing during this unit also.
We were so excited and so thankful for one of my followers to reach out and offer to send some traditional treats from the Netherlands. They were all so good and lots of fun to try new things.
That was everything we did during our Netherlands unit study and we really enjoyed this one. We learned a lot and did some simple crafts.
Next I’ll be sharing our study on Italy! Stay tuned!
– Lindsay
To see all of the other country studies we have completed, head to THIS blog post and scroll to the bottom for all the direct links.
