DIY Little Passports: England

Cheerio, g’uvner! Honestly I was super excited to properly introduce my World Explorer to England solely for the Beatles! It’s been awesome being able to listen to Beatles songs every day and even rent the movie “Yesterday” (it was so enjoyable!) to watch with my sweetheart near their 50th anniversary. Since we live in America and have some Welsh heritage, our little Explorer has tons of western and specifically English influences so the only difficult part was choosing a handful to focus on this month!

In This Package

• Postcard & Sticker for travel box
• Usborne London Activity Book with puzzles, doodles, games, recipes, and stickers
• London themed sticker sheet
• Stamps for passport
• Letter

Additional Resources:

My Explorer has a lot going on at school already so the only chapter book I included was from her favorite series The Magic Treehouse. There were absolutely beautiful editions of Alice in Wonderland that I borrowed and only ended up including the “Seek and Find” for length and the fun factor. The info type “England” book from Scholastic had some true but very grisly accounts including pictures of leaders murdering each other or massacres so I tried to limit them. Not pictured because they arrived shortly after are picture books “The Queen’s Hat” and “Jane Goodall”.

Castles, dragons, and tales adapted into animated films I grew up with seemed the most child friendly and classic! Yes—Harry Potter, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, Sherlock Holmes, Charles Darwin, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, and a plethora of amazing British/English/UK wonders are missing! All in good time, I didn’t want to drown her in English culture when I really wanted her to have a taste.

Things Mentioned in The Letter

• London buses, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace
• The English language
• English writings, music, and colonialism changing world culture for all time
• English scientists like Jane Goodall and Charles Darwin

Cost Breakdown

• Stamps & Postcard: included with initial package
• Library Items: FREE
• Usborne London Activity Book: $12.89
• London Stickers: $0.50

Total Cost: $13.39

How It’s Going

The Baby Beatles CD which has Beatles songs in kid form started out in the house where my kiddos couldn’t stop dancing to them! Now the CD is in the car and is a huge hit with the kids! My son calls it “Bug songs” and asks to hear them every time we are going for a drive. My Explorer has memorized many of them with her amazing skills, as well as read every library book in the kit. It only took her a day or two to finish the chapter book on King Arthur and she told me all about Morgan Le Fay and her son—I only remembered because I watched a movie of it when I was a kid and was scarred for life… She’s still working on the Usborne Activity book, which has proved to have hours of fun!

Check out all the other places we’ve explored in this DIY Little Passports project here!