Home Preschool: Germany (+ free printable!)

I haven't blogged in about a zillion years (okay, maybe it's just been since Sweet Pea came to live with us - I'm a little busy), but we've been starting to do some home preschooling with Pumpkin again and I wanted to share our most recent preschool unit with you, because it was really fun! A few weeks ago, one of Pumpkin's best friends moved to Germany, so we decided to take some time to learn about Germany, to help Pumpkin develop a concept of where her friend is now.

Here's what we did:

There are a lot of castles in Germany, so we looked at pictures of a few, then I cut out various shapes and let Pumpkin (and a friend) glue them onto paper to construct their own castles.

Cuckoo clocks were popularized, and probably invented, in Germany, so we decided to build our own out of popsicle sticks. It was a really great, basic introduction to telling time (really basic), and it doesn't make loud noises at all hours of the night. I call that a win!

We also made some gingerbread play dough. Gingerbread houses are very popular in Germany, and feature prominently in some German folktales, (most notably, Hansel and Gretel, which we didn't read because it's terrifying). I didn't feel like baking and constructing a house, so we made play dough instead, using this recipe.

Of course we couldn't learn about Germany without trying some German food. We went to a local German deli and selected some bratwurst, spaetzle, and other goodies. Pumpkin even got to choose her own treat!

We also made some Germany themed patterns! I designed this pattern sheet myself, and you can download it here! Just print out extra sheets and cut out the squares to complete the patterns.

Here are some of the books we read:
Me Tall, You Small, by Lilli L'Arronge
Colors in German, by Daniel Nunn
Gingerbread Friends, by Jan Brett
Meals in Germany, by R.J. Bailey
Germany, by Wiley Blevins
There are, of course, quite a few other books about Germany out there that I wish we had access to, but our library didn't have a huge selection, so these are what we read. I wish we could have found:
This is Munich, by M. Sasek
Germany ABCs, by Sarah Helman

Here are the videos we watched:
Are We There Yet? Germany: Downhill Skiing
Are We There Yet? Germany: Fairytale Castle
Geography Kids - Germany!
Cuckoo Clock demonstration - it takes a while to get started, but Pumpkin was delighted with it!