Making Our Own Country

Last week, a library book led us to explore a sculpture garden. This week, a library book led us to create our own countries. I Need My Own Country by Rick Walton is a fun little book about a girl who creates her own country to get away from her brother and mother after she feels she has been treated unfairly. She explains exactly what steps to take. Boogs loved this book and asked if he could follow the steps to create his own country. Of course!

Boogs read through the book several times (sneaky repeated readings) and wrote down what he needed to have to make his own country. Boogs' country's location was his room. He named his country Winter Island after his pet hamster, Winter.

 

The flag for Winter Island has a smiling Boogs in the center. The national animals and their favorite snacks are at the top of the flag - a hamster and a fish. There are sunflower seeds and fish food lined up behind the animals. We hung our flags on the doors to our countries.

The book said, "...there might be invasions. You will want to defend yourself." Boogs really had fun with the invasions. His stuffed animals were his citizens. They defended the country against my invading army of books. (My country was called Creatimagination and was located in my craft room.)  He used his citizen soldiers to knock down my book citizens. I threw pencils and shot rubber bands at his army. Boogs declared there would be two battles a day. This lasted about a week.

 

After each battle, we had to give out medals for bravery, sacrifice, honor, and  peace.

The book informed us that we needed to have national money. We spent an entire morning making money for our countries.

 We had fun working on projects for our countries.

One afternoon, I heard Boogs playing the same few notes over and over again on his keyboard. When I asked him about it, he said he was working on the tune for his national anthem. So cute! He is still trying to come up with the perfect pledge of allegiance.

I often make story themed lunches inspired by the books that we read. This is the lunch that matches Boogs' country. In his ELB lunchbox: Winter Island cheese quesadilla, broccoli for the island's trees, candied sunflower seeds for the national animal's snacks, blueberry water for the national sport of swimming, and rice & beans with a melted cheese hamster for the national animal.

This post is linked to:
After School Linky Party
Read Explore Learn
Link & Learn
It's Playtime

Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.