Iraq Unit

The United States invaded Iraq when I was in middle school. This led to many immature jokes by kids who didn’t really know much about the events creating puns off the names Iraq and Iran. They were pretty stupid, but everyone felt so mature and hilarious. In my mind Iraq is very tied up with the former dictator, and current events. However, there is a lot more to Iran, which sadly we didn’t get into too much for our Iran unit for the geography lessons as part of our Asia Unit.

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Iraq unit resources

• Famous people from Iraq
• Iraq facts for kids
• 54 Iraq facts
• 89 Iraq facts

All right, unlike many of the countries we talked bout recently, we have some books to read with this unit.

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Iraq booklist

Not to mention I got a Cinderella Around the World book out of this list, so I’m doubly happy.

• Gabe: the dog who sniffs out danger– A cool book to read about a combat dog
• Gilgamesh the King– Gorgeous illustrations for this retelling of the Gilgamesh epic, also this is on my Mesopotamia booklist
• Iraq-great overview of the book
• Iraq– another good overview book
• The Librarian of Basra– I loved this book and how she worked to keep the books safe
• Lost and found cat: the true story of Kunkush’s incredible journey– This was a great book and so encouraging
• Osnat and her dove: the true story of the world’s first female rabbi– Sadly this was checked out when we studied Iraq, so I wasn’t able to read it
• Silent Music: a story of Baghdad– I loved this story of a young boy who used calligraphy to help get through the war
• The World is Not a Rectangle: a portrait of architect Zaha Hadid– Nothing in this book particularly stood out to me, our library also had Zaha Hadid from the Little People Big Dreams series

Huh, I was incorrect. It wasn’t Iraq, it was Iran who had a Cinderella Around the World book.

And then our final bit was the Iraq Geography Now video:

And here’s the Flag Friday video:

One downside to finding all the cool shots of the countries we studied, I end up coming up with so many places I want to visit someday, like this location, doesn’t it look cool?

Iraq recipe: Klechia Masgouf, Iraqi grilled fish

I didn’t particularly see any main dishes I was super excited by, so I decided to cook a dessert, especially since the recipe was a date cookie or klechia recipe, and I love dates.

All right, I’m really confused because I have a picture of a chicken recipe in my Iraq file, and no dessert recipe. So very very confused.

And no reference to where that came from.

Ha! I found it. It’s not a chicken recipe, it’s a fish recipe. Which is hilarious, but okay.

I also may have completely messed up my home page and changed it on the button somehow while trying to fix a few things. That’s special.

Okay, I’ve fixed that. It’s been quite the afternoon.

Oh no, have to go cook dinner, and I really should have figured out what I want to cook for dinner this week.

Masgouf ingredients

• 5 white fish fillets (tilapia)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons curry
• 1 large onion chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3 tablespoon oil
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups parsley
• 12 6 ounce can tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 cup broth

Making the fish

1. Mix together 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of curry. Rub it over the fish fillets.
2. Saute the onion and garlic in oil until translucent. Add the diced tomato, parsley, tomato paste, vinegar, lemon juice, and broth along with the remaining salt and curry.
3. Stir until all the agreements come together to form the sauce. Then cook for another 5 minutes
4. While the sauce is cooking cook the fish in your preferred method. We pan-fried it in a small amount of butter or olive oil.

Masgouf Fish Recipe

Print

Masgouf Fish recipe is great served with steamed rice.

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Ingredients

• 5 white fish fillets (tilapia)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons curry
• 1 large onion chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3 tablespoon oil
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups parsley
• 12 6 ounce can tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 cup broth

Instructions

1. Mix together 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of curry. Rub it over the fish fillets.
2. Saute the onion and garlic in oil until translucent. Add the diced tomato, parsley, tomato paste, vinegar, lemon juice, and broth along with the remaining salt and curry.
3. Stir until all the agreements come together to form the sauce. Then cook for another 5 minutes
4. While the sauce is cooking cook the fish in your preferred method. We pan-fried it in a small amount of butter or olive oil.

It was good, not great. I would probably season the fish with garlic salt rather than plain salt of cooking it again, but it was another fun way to make fish.

Iraq Unit notebooking pages

I might need to go in and create some minibooks for this unit because there are some cool things I want to highlight, but didn’t realize that until I was watching the Geography Now video again.

We filled out the Asia notebooking pages. Here are some of my favorite things I learned:

• Britain created the country during their colonial time
• the Blood Coast, red algae, primarily because I remember it being in a Clive Cussler book we read years ago
• so many ancient civilizations originated here

More learning fun

We learned this in high school, so I’m going to go opposite and grab some ideas for little kids:

• Very Hungry Caterpillar Unit
• Bird Unit
• Process vs. Product (Clifford’s Halloween)
• California Unit (first studied in Kindergarten and then again a few years ago)
• Nursery Rhyme preschool book

“File:Rawa (Iraq) 20.jpg” by Mahmoudalrawi is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.