Fiji Unit

Thanks to the Agents of Shield show I know Fiji is a tropical island nation. That’s right, I’m using a Marvel TV show for a frame of reference. It’s not a good one, but I think it’s important to be honest about what I know before we study a country. So let’s see how our geography lessons went.

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Fiji Unit Resources

Huh, National Geographic doesn’t have a Fiji for kids post. That is weird.

Okay, let’s see what Fiji facts I can find.

• 7 Fiji Fun Facts– look at that awesome alliteration, the facts are not super interesting though
• Kids’ World Facts about Fiji– this is a much better resource
• Fiji Facts– fairly straightforward, did you know straightforward is all one word? I swear it wasn’t always
• Fiji kiddle facts– this has many of the same pictures as on their Wikipedia page, interestingly enough

And the Geography Now video:

And it is just late enough in the alphabet there is a Flag Friday video, which my kids make fun of me for watching on my own. I don’t care. I like it.

Fiji Unit recipe: Fish in a white wine sauce

So, funny story. I can’t find my recipe. You know what I do have? The picture of what I made. I stared at that picture for a long time and came to the conclusion I made:

However, I can’t find where I found this recipe from. I did a bunch of searching and was able to find a whole slew of other recipes, including a whole list of Finian food. Large portions of the recipes used ingredients I can’t get easily. Then a whole slew of recipes I do not have the skill to make. Seriously, I am not confident enough in my skills to try and make ceviche or anything where I’ll serve raw meat.

Since I don’t have the official recipe, I’ll just write up how we make our lazy white wine sauce in the recipe card.

White Wine Sauce

Print

A simple white wine sauce that can be served over fish or chicken.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 3-6 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1-2 tablespoons flour (optional)
• 1 cup water or broth (optional)

Instructions

1. Melt butter in pan over medium heat.
2. Add garlic and let cook for 1-2 minutes.
3. If making a roux, add the flour to mix and thicken the sauce.
4. Add the wine and allow to simmer for a few minutes.
5. If making a thicker sauce, add the broth and allow to simmer another few minutes.

As I was verifying how this is made I realized some people make it slightly thicker by adding a roux and then adding in some more liquid in the form of broth usually, but sometimes cream.

But, I think this might have been when I discovered HEB has frozen Mahi-Mahi and a few other types of fish like that which are ridiculously expensive if bought fresh, but are affordable for my family when frozen.

Fiji Unit: animals

Again, here I go with a new country when I’m trying to add in some more things before Gary Harlow tells me about animals from the country so let me do a quick bit of research to find out about some Fijian animals.

Oh my goodness! When I did a search there are some really cool animals! You have to look them up. I also found a quick resource for you, Animals in Fiji, and a quick video just showing them, no real information.

• Fiji crested iguana
• Fijian monkey-faced bat- the pictures of this guy are so cool
• Orange fruit dove
• Red-throated lorikeet
• Brachylophus- Fiji has a couple of different versions of this

Fiji Unit: notebooking pages

We filled out our Oceania notebooking pages and wrote down our favorite facts.

I rewatched the video, like I usually do when writing these posts, and I had apparently blocked out a few facts about Fiji that I don’t really like. You’ll probably be able to guess what it is once you read my facts I wrote down.

• Only like 1/4 or 1/3 of the islands making up the country are occupied, 110 to be exact.
• One of the islands is on the international dateline, which means the country got tired of being on two different dates, so they arbitrarily decided when their country would be, it’s the same thing Kiribati did
• It was once called Cannibal Islands (la la la la la I can’t hear you)
• They are the only island/people group outside of Europe with naturally occurring blonde hair, it’s fascinating to see
• As a result of being a small island nation surrounded by many other small island nations, and having been colonized, it has a very diverse culture

Okay, so that was our Fiji unit. I’m writing this up after we’ve finished studying all of Oceania (I’m actually writing this because I realized I need to get some Oceania posts written at some point, so I pointedly chose this country). It’s really interesting to me how very similar so many of their cultures are. There are so many cross-cultural opportunities going on in the area.

Some more learning fun

This time I’m going to pick some 4th grade learning fun.

• Battle of Hastings
• Kiki’s Delivery Service book club
• How to write a research paper for elementary school
• Bluebonnet craft
• Skeleton Unit

Such-change47, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons