Our package from South Africa

I have been wondering what to do with the lovely items that we received from our World Wide Culture Swap families. I hit upon the idea of the girls adding some of the lovely items to their journals as a way of remembering these special packages.

We started on the package from our South African family first. It was also a great way to slowly ease the girls back into some school work as we took the opportunity to re-read and discuss the items and look up where they were from again.

 

Some of the lovely African items ... that balm now lives in my handbag and

the girls asked me to put the key ring onto my car keys.

 

 

Paper made from elephant dung ... a HUGE, I mean HUGE hit with the girls.

 

 

I love how this family thought to laminate some recipes and local words.

I must remember to do that myself if we participate in another exchange.

 

 

Amazingly we still hadn't eaten all the lollies so the girls ate these

whilst they put together their journal pages.

 

Eating the last remaining "Fizzer". Check out the expressions ...

 

Agent Smelly's pages

 

 

 

 

The Fashionista's pages.

 

 

These are the near finished pages. They just had to colour the flags and they also wrote some details of the family who sent this to us (names and area) onto a piece of paper which went into the blank area they left. There was talk of glitter ... of course!

They were really pleased with the results and being in their journal, they will always be remembered. Although the girls have started to correspond with this families two boys, that are of a similar age, so you never know they could end up with ever-lasting friendships. I have kept in touch with their mum via email and facebook too so I too have gained a lovely new friend from this venture.

Journaling their wee History

Today for history, just to shake things up a bit, instead of using their traditional text books I had them do a timeline of the history of their short lives to-date.

Agents Smelly's timeline. Love the latest pic of her doing gymnastics.

It was actually very funny listening to them trying to work out what they did each year that was worth drawing onto their timeline.

By The Fashionista; the little circle of girls she drew for when she joined Pippins (Guides) cute?

Once they finished them, I had them place them into their journals for prosperity.

Journaling

Earlier this year I gifted the girls each a journal. It's simply a simple ring bound book with thick plain unlined pages.

As they accumulate items I have them stick them into their journal, ie ticket stubs, guide outing memoriabilia, photo's etc 

At their age they do don't bother with a lot of writing but I am hoping as the years go by that they will start adding narratives and sketches and doodles and so on to their pages.

I am hoping that one day they will enjoy looking through them and remembering their journey through life.

Today I printed the girls some photo's of their new club house so they could pop them into their journals. I gave them some scrapbooking supplies and let them decorate their pages as they wished to. The only suggestions I make are sometimes for them to record a date, or a person's name, etc

Hard at work.

Agent Smelly proudly displaying her finished pages.