Netherlands Unit Study

For reasons related to my Dad having a friend from Holland, I somehow didn’t realize Holland was a part of the Netherlands until I was definitely an adult. He would talk about his friend from Holland, and how such and such thing happened in Holland. Of course, there’s also the fact that another region of the Netherlands is Zealand, which New Zealand is named for. So, all in all I had a lot of fun with our Netherlands Unit as we started our spring through Europe in our geography lessons.

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Netherlands Resources

This was before I discovered Geography Now, but I’m still going to include it, because I really like his videos, and also I learn so much about the country from him.

And this is after the start of Flag/Fan Friday, so let’s see what red stands for here:

Netherlands unit book list

My library had over 20 books on the Netherlands, probably because Anne Frank was there and we had several for Anne Frank. Also, it was one of the countries that had some great rebellion during World War 2.

Thankfully this was created BEFORE my library stopped letting you organize by call number, thus making organizing so much harder.

And if you want a printable booklist, join my newsletter because this is in the subscriber library.

Nonfiction Netherlands book list

• Netherlands
• The Netherlands– these first two are both more or less a good summary of the country
• Rembrandt– I like this series, and it’s a great way to learn about artists
• Rembrandt and seventeenth-century Holland-this one is a bit more of a traditional story, but I like both of them
• Hiding from the Nazis– a great retelling of Lore Baer’s childhood in hiding as a picture book for children
• The lilly cupboard– another great story about a young girl who is hidden by kind neighbors during World War 2
• The hero of Little Street– the story of a young boy who slips into a Vermeer painting, it’s weird
• Anne Frank’s chestnut tree– a version of Anne Frank’s story you could read to your young children, concentrating on the tree she would watch, without really focusing as much on how the story ends
• Anne Frank– this one is for slightly older elementary kids who are able to handle a bit more of her story
• Pedal power: how one community became the bicycle capital of the world-a great story of how Amsterdam emphasized riding bicycles over cars
• All in a drop: how Antony van Leeuwenhoek discovered an invisible world– I think we were studying this just as we were studying Renaissance science, so it was a double dose of learning about Antony van Leeuwenhoek

Netherlands fiction books

• Katje, the windmill cat– based on a traditional Dutch tale of a cat who saved lives
• Jack the Wolf– this one is from a Dutch artist/author, and is a fun take on Little Red Riding Hood
• Like People– another Dutch author, this one with a cute story about animals trying to be like people
• Raf– another Dutch author, this is a great story most kids will relate to when a favorite toy is lost
• Father, may I come?– a young boy wants to come with his father on a rescue ship, echoing a story from the past
• Boxes for Katje-a great story of a young girl after World War II and how a box from America changes her town, I super loved this story
• Blueberries for the Queen– I loved this book with a young boy imagining how he might help the queen of Denmark in exile

Netherlands recipe

Princess The Artist (that tells you how long ago I started writing this, over 2 years ago) made Dutch Peanut Cookies, though apparently, that first site doesn’t have the recipe just “they’re a favorite,” but if I’m going to buy a favorite, I’ll buy stroopwafels, because YUM. Look at how cute the tin they come in is.

But, I’m going to say she used this recipe.

Dutch Peanut Cookies ingredients

• 8 tablespoons softened butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup shelled salted peanuts

Let’s make those cookies!

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Cream together the butter and sugars until thoroughly mixed. Then add the vanilla extract and the egg.
3. Slowly add the flour, baking powder, and peanuts, mix well.
4. Drop balls of dough about 2 inches apart onto the baking sheet and cook until golden brown, for about 10 minutes.

Netherland Unit: notebooking pages

This is back when I was still making mini-books for what we learned about, so there are mini-books. It wasn’t too much longer after this I quit making my kids fill out mini-books, of course, some of that is because many of the countries we studied I wasn’t able to find decent books on, so didn’t have ideas for mini-books.

But, either way, the notebooking pages are the Europe notebooking pages, and all of the mini-books are on my subscriber page (join my newsletter).

• Rembrandt art lesson- Rembrandt was known for his hundreds of self-portraits so we all made self-portraits, and it was rather amusing
• I hid behind the bookcase
• I helped the Queen by
• We hid from the Nazis- these last three were from those World War II books
• Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek- they wrote a few sentences about what they learned

More great learning fun

• Georgia (country) unit
• Alice Through the Looking Glass book club
• Titian Art lesson
• Matilda book club
• Greensboro Protest lesson

“Leiden, The Netherlands” by ironmanixs is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0