England was the next country we explored in our around the world studies and my kids absolutely loved this country!
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Welcome to England
My children and I started our “trip” to England, which is part of the United Kingdom, by pretending to go to the airport. While at the airport, I stamped their passports and added a United Kingdom flag sticker next to the stamp.
I introduced the country of England to my children by looking at the United Kingdom in our Maps book and our Countries of the World book.
I explained to my children that the United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. I then explained how each country has their own individual flags, but that together they all also share the flag for the United Kingdom.
My children then colored the flag for England, as well as the flag for the United Kingdom while using our 199 Flags book as a reference.
I added their colored flags to their around the world journals along with some facts they learned about England: the capital, main language, and population.
Finally, they colored the map of England that I printed from the internet, which I also added to their journals.
London
London is the capital of England as well as the United Kingdom. We spent some time discussing the different sights in London, including Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, London Eye, Tower Bridge, River Thames, as well as the red London bus and red telephone box.
I read This is London and Madeline in London to my children and we also read about the London Eye in our Atlas of Adventures book.
My kids colored their own adorable “London bus tour” red bus booklet craft, which came out so cute! You can find the free printable booklet HERE!
We also read The Great Stink about how Joseph Bazalgette built London’s modern sewer systems, which helped to end London’s cholera epidemic in the 1800s.
Big Ben
We read about Big Ben in our Letters from Afar for London. This letter, along with all the other Letters from Afar, was so beautiful and I highly recommend signing up for a subscription HERE.
We also read a book about Big Ben and watched a few videos, which my kids loved.
This first video includes information about Big Ben, and also a little bit about the London Eye and the Tower Bridge:
This second video shares information about Big Ben:
This last video shows what is inside Big Ben, which my kids loved:
Finally, our Kiwi Atlas Crate for England included making a wooden model of Big Ben, with a real working clock, which my kids absolutely loved building! It’s currently on display on their dresser in their bedroom.
Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace has been the residence of royalty since the 1800s.
My kids completed an easy craft of the royal guards guarding Buckingham Palace. I printed out a picture of Buckingham Palace on card stock (found HERE) and had my kids make fingerprint royal guards, using red, black, and peach paints. I added this cute craft to their journals.
We also watched this video my kids enjoyed, which shows what’s inside Buckingham Palace:
Castles & Knights
We read a few books about the medieval period in England as well as the lineage of the kings and queens of England. Our favorite book from this list was Come to the Castle.
- Come to the Castle
- You Wouldn’t Want to Live in a Medieval Castle!
- DK Eyewitness: Knight
- Don’t Know Much About the Kings and Queens of England
- See Inside Castles
Our Kiwi Atlas Crate for England included materials for making your own coat of arms banner. My boys loved completing this activity and selecting what symbols to include on their coat of arms. After completing the activity, they hung the banner up in their bedroom.
English Literature
England has been the home to a multitude of legendary authors. We learned about some of these authors as well as some of the children’s literature and fairy tales that came from England.
Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
We are using Brave Writer Darts for our Language Arts curriculum this year. The Dart program includes a guide to use to teach LA while reading a novel to your children.
While studying England, I selected for us to complete the Dart Literature Guide for The House at Pooh Corner, since the author, A.A. Milne, is from England. My kids loved this book, as well as Winnie the Pooh, which we read first.
We also read A.A. Milne poetry during our book club party for The House at Pooh Corner. I have a separate blog post where you can read all about our book club party. My blog post shows all the yummy Winnie the Pooh themed treats I made as well as all the activities we completed for The House at Pooh Corner. You can find my other blog post HERE.
We also read the story of the real bear who inspired A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, in Finding Winnie.
Finally, since my boys absolutely loved everything we were doing related to Winnie the Pooh, we also looked through The Natural World of Winnie the Pooh, which explored the forest that was the inspiration behind the Hundred Acre Wood. It’s such a cool book that shows the real forest as well as illustrations from the Winnie the Pooh books.
The Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis
I plan on reading the Chronicles of Narnia series to my children. Since we were already reading the Winnie the Pooh books I didn’t have the time to start this series now but I will read it to them in the future.
I found a picture book version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that I read to my children that they enjoyed. We also read Finding Narnia, which is a picture book biography about C.S. Lewis that we all loved.
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
This is another series I plan on reading to my kids in the future but probably not for another few years since my kids are still pretty young.
I explained to them that Tolkien is a famous author that wrote The Lord of the Rings series and we read about him in John Ronald’s Dragons, which is a picture book biography about his life.
Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter
Beatrix Potter is a legendary children’s author who was from England. We read her infamous story, Peter Rabbit, which my kids loved!
Mary Poppins – P.L. Travers
P.L. Travers is another British author who is known for being the author of Mary Poppins. We read a picture book version of Mary Poppins, which we all enjoyed.
William Shakespeare & Charles Dickens
I fully intended on covering William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens by using versions of some of their famous stories that were adapted for children.
I borrowed Usborne’s Illustrated Stories from Shakespeare and Illustrated Stories from Dickens from my local library. However, upon looking through the stories to select which ones I would read to my children I felt as though themes in the stories were too mature for my young children, even though they were children’s versions. Therefore, I decided not to read these stories to my kids.
We absolutely will explore these authors as my children get older, it just wasn’t the right time for us now.
However, the two books I previously mentioned above were both beautifully illustrated and looked like great children’s adaptations of stories from Shakespeare and Dickens.
Fairy Tales from England
We read three fairy tales that originated in England: The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Jack and the Beanstalk.
I also have another blog post about a Three Little Pigs STEM project we completed that you can find HERE.
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is located in England and it is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world.
I read the book, The Secrets of Stonehenge, to my children and we also read about Stonehenge in our Atlas of Adventures Wonders of the World book.
We also watched this video about the history of Stonehenge:
Finally, I also had my children build their own Stonehenge out of Lincoln Logs, which came out so cute!
Titanic
The Titanic set sail from Southampton, England on April 1912. It was scheduled to disembark in New York but it tragically sank in the Atlantic Ocean on April 12, 1912.
My kids absolutely LOVED learning about the Titanic. I read the following books to my kids about the Titanic:
- If You Were a Kid Aboard the Titanic
- DK Eyewitness: Titanic
- You Wouldn’t Want to Sail Aboard the Titanic!
We watched this video about the Titanic:
My boys love anything related to architecture/engineering and especially loved this next video, which shows all the deck plans of the Titanic. They’ve also watched it several times since then.
Finally I had my kids draw the Titanic, which I added to their journals, using this video tutorial:
New Forest National Park
We learned a little bit about New Forest National Park by watching this video:
England Kiwi Atlas Crate
My boys absolutely love KiwiCo Atlas Crates! Atlas Crates is a subscription where each month you receive one country box containing information, a recipe, and two crafts that directly relate to that month’s country.
The activities in the England crate include making a model of Big Ben and making a coat of arms banner, which I previously mentioned above. Atlas Crates are my boys favorite activities when we complete each country in our around the world studies.
The small wooden letters that spell out England aren’t included in the Atlas Crate. The wooden alphabet letters can be found HERE.
Goodbye to England
At the end of our studies about England, I asked my kids what they enjoyed most from their “visit” to England.
They each told me their favorite activity we completed, their favorite book we read, and they rated how much they liked their visit to England from 1 to 5 stars (they both picked 5 stars).
I included all of this information on their passport stamp that I stamped in their play passports when we first “arrived” in England.
My children and I enjoyed learning all about England! In fact, my boys both said it was their favorite country we learned about so far!
I hope you found this post helpful for your own around the world studies. To see all of the countries we have completed to date, you can check out my country index blog post HERE.
You can also see detailed information for all of the main resources we are using in our country unit studies HERE.
Thanks for reading!
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