The Fine Art of Fasching

Fasching is a wonderful, but totally incomprehensible, German holiday. It starts in November, rolls to February, coming to a head around Mardi Gras season. Fasching seems to be mainly marked by a larger-than-life presence of totally inappropriate adult "costume" wear just adjacent to the children's toys in Globus (German Target). The children even get to participate in Fasching at school, which involves eating remarkable amounts of candy and kuchen at school, whilst your parents, dressed as pirates, etc, drink champagne and eat appetizers. Sounds perfect, right?

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A few months prior to our school's weekend and weekday Fasching activities, the kinders started a unit on...pirates. The extra bonus of this unit of study is that JillyBoo started dressing up like Keith Richards, and we read a lot of wonderful books, such as Peter Pan and the Eyewitness Pirates book. The latter elicited the response, "Uh, mom, aren't there any nice pirates?" No, not so much. I did learn that Blackbeard used to make himself primitive beard extensions that he lit on fire, resulting in a frightening smoking effect. He was punk before punk was cool.

Overall, Fasching seems to be an opportunity for the locals to let loose before lent. It is refreshing to be part of a community that allows people to have fun and be raucous...with in reason, of course!

Inspiration

We've been so busy lately that even sitting down to listen to JillyBoo read has been a seemingly overly exhausting task. Finally, this weekend, things slowed down enough for us to do some laundry and consider what topics inspire us to learn. For the last 3 weeks, JillyBoo has not been inspired by her achievements in violin, groaning when I even mention a Twinkle.

After a long weekend on the island of Malta, we were relaxed, but our house was in chaos. While visiting the Mediterranean island nation, we had the totally unexpected opportunity to explore a site described in Homer's Odyssey. Really? I couldn't believe it!! I've often lamented that I didn't attend a public high school good enough to present senior with the Iliad and the Odyssey. I do appreciate, as an adult, that I can earn the education that I feel I didn't receive in my youth, and that my enthusiasm for learning can serve as a springboard for my daughter's education.

On one of the Maltese islands, Gozo, there is a site called, "Calypso's Cave." Calypso was a goddess so entranced with Odysseus that she socked him away in a cave for 7 years, only letting him go after Hermes informed her that Zeus was not too thrilled with their living arrangements. The word cave makes you think of a, you know, cave, so it would surprise you to know that the Gozitan cave, one of the six possible sites for the location of Calypso's cave, is more like a hole in the ground!

Land Ahoy!



JillyBoo's Piratenchef

 In a recent newsletter from JillyBoo's German Kindergarten, the teachers shared that for their current unit, they are studying pirates! Arg! I talked to one of JillyBoo's teachers about the unit, as I tried to translate the portions that made any sense to me, and she stated that the kids will study the elements as they study pirates, too. They are working on understanding water and the things that water does, and also animals and plants that live in the water.

This information about their new unit of study really excited me, as up to now, their studies seemed random and only related to German holidays. Don't get me wrong-learning about German holidays from Germans themselves whilst living in Germany-that's academic! JillyBoo attends a Catholic Kindergarten (they are all Catholic or Evangelische), and therefore JillyBoo has been introduced to many new concepts. "Uh, mom, am I allowed to go in the church?" We consider world religions an important part of her education, however, we were also wanting to see some more academic content.

While pirates may not seem very academic, the idea that they are studying the elements brought a little joy to my teacher-heart. Friday morning when we arrived at school, the teachers had set up a Playmobil pirate ship for the kids to enjoy. I was in awe of the toy with all of its details and grandeur. Prior to living in Germany, Playmobil seemed like another junky plastic toy company. I now know that Playmobil toys are excellent imaginative play toys, and I love that they offer kids the opportunity to use the toys flexibly. For example, JillyBoo has a set from the Magic Castle line that includes princesses with interchangeable hair, etc, to make the princess into Rapunzel, a fairy, or even a queen.

JillyBoo was very excited to go to school on Friday, as she was able to see a movie....at school! She couldn't believe her luck. On Thursday, the students watched part of one of the Pippi Langstrumf movies, and JillyBoo was dazzled by Pippi's horse carrying abilities. We had actually read the first Pippi book together, however, she acted as if she didn't remember any of the book! JillyBoo loved the fact that there were pirates in the movie, and wanted to meet one immediately. As usual, she didn't trust her dad when he told her that pirates still exist, but that they aren't the same sort of pirates in the movie.

On a side note, we purchased JillyBoo some movies that are both in German and English at Globus a few weekends ago, but had not attempted to watch them yet. First, we learned that DVDs have different regions (totally didn't know that!) and that they will only play on devices set for a certain region. The U.S., it seems, is set to region 1 and European DVDs are region 2. You are only allowed to change your laptop's region code 5 or so times in its life, but we thought it was worth it to change it so that JillyBoo could continue her ability to understand German even when we move away.

Besides watchinig movies, JillyBoo created an awesome pirate ship, complete with a Jolly Rogers' flag. (pic will be added soon!). We've learned that "skull and crossbones" in Deutsch is "totenkopf," and JillyBoo wrote a "Captin's Song" (sic) about pirates! (I would also add that, but it was lost somewhere in the house cleaning yesterday!) I'm in the market for at-home extensions of the pirate activities, so if you have any, please share!

Here are some links I have already encountered:
Pirates at familyfun.com  (Check out that boat cake? Do I offer to try and make it for the school?)
Kaboose Pirate games and crafts
Pirate Treasure Map

In two straight lines they broke their bread

If you read our family travel blog, this posting will likely be redundant, but I wanted to add it because we used our trip to Paris as a very enriching afterschooling experience!

The Eiffel Tower at night. Sparkly and amazing!

As Americans living in Europe, we have the benefit of actually seeing sites that many kids can only dream of when they crack open their history books. Unfortunately, JillyBoo, at 5-years-old, isn't at the ideal age for explaining many of the more complicated issues of European history, but we try our best to help her to understand at an age-appropriate level.

Me and JillyBoo, standing in front of one of Paris' main displays of power and narcissism.

For example, how do you explain power, crazed and insane dictators, holocaust, invasions, the overwhelming presence of violence that accompanied religious fervor? Many of the ideas are, of course, way over JillyBoo's head, and likely, she'll never be old enough to visit these sites or really appreciate European history until after we leave Europe.

For now, we look for the opportunity to tie-in her learning to literary references. On a recent trip to Paris over the MLK, Jr. holiday, we were able to connect the stories of the spunky and precocious Madeline to the iconic sites of the City of Lights. JillyBoo is lucky enough to have 3 awesome grandmas, who enrich her life with visits, letters, phone calls and, of course, presents! This year, JillyBoo received an enormous collection of Madeline books, dolls and clothes. Perfect timing for our Paris trip!

We were able to score a cabin for our trip into Paris on the ICE train, a super-fast train that makes minimal stops, therefore allowing you to arrive at your destination in a timely manner. the train was moving, at times, at 300 km/hr!! Yikes! The cabin made it easy for us to listen to a little Jack Johnson on the iPad while working on reading, writing and playing on the table. We also viewed many of the flooded parts of the French/German border, the result of an unbelievably snowy winter.

In our cabin on the ICE train en route to Paris!!

A huge bonus of a trip to Paris is the easy-to-use transportation system. Looking at the metro map provided opportunities to discuss mapping, directions, and relative locations. The map is easy enough for even mommy to read, and JillyBoo seemed to get the idea of an underground train-they are underground to save space for vehicle transportation.

On our first day, I was able to pull out our Madeline book on our visit to the Eiffel Tower. What an incredible piece of engineering! We talked a little about the World Fair, about Eiffel, the man, and his persistence and vision. From the Tower, you can see many of the Madeline sites, which have little context from that height unless you have the Madeline book with you. Luckily, Ludwig Bemelmans thought to put a handy listing of the sites featured in the illustrations in the back of the book (thank you, author!). I was able to point out Les Invalides' shiny golden dome, the Tuileries Garden and La Place de la Concorde. For some fun an inexplicable (to me, anyways) reason, there is a room with pink windows on one of the lower levels, so we had to check out Paris in pink!

La Vie en Rose. Live from the pink room on the Eiffel Tower

Besides La Tour Eiffel, we visited the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre and all of its outstanding historical artifacts and Notre Dame cathedral. As much as I'd like to elaborate on those educational sites, a short, blonde JillyBoo is clamboring for my attention!