Portugal for kids

Hi! Future Ticia 2026 and I’m updating my Portugal Unit, and making this into a much more useful geography lesson that is part of my overall super giant Europe Unit (you know with all of the European countries in it, or it will once they’re all written). We first studied Portugal back when the kids were tiny and in elementary school, so the first round is in here, and I’ve updated to include our second round in high school, where we did a refresher with more information. Now back to past Ticia 2014 who has occasional comments from past Ticia 2021.

It’s time for another round of Around the World in 12 Dishes, and this month it’s Portugal for kids.  Portugal was a fun place to study about, but our library didn’t really have any good books on it.  This is the first time our library has failed me (Future Ticia 2021 has found a few books that I’ll have to write about later; they’re not particularly great). However, this Portugal unit is a great addition to our geography lessons.

Portugal Recipe: Quejidas

Quejidas ingredients: 3 eggs, 2 cups sugar, 3 tablespoons butter, 3/4 cup flour, 2 cups milk, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla

 

1. Crack eggs, add sugar, and butter.  Cream those ingredients together (this takes FOREVER).
2. Add the milk and vanilla and blend some more (maybe add a bit extra vanilla because it tastes good).
3. Slowly add the flour, or maybe we added the flour first and then the milk…..
4. Pour into muffin tins until about 2/3 full.  Bake at 325 for 45 minutes or so.  Grumble about the silicon muffin pans and vow never to use them again.
5. Make the kids clean the counter.

I would just like to point out that for once I actually had ALL of the ingredients, ALL OF THEM.  Did you see that?  It never happens.

These disappeared really fast.  They also reminded me a little bit of the Finnish oven pancakes.  Which also disappeared really fast.

We also made, but have no good pictures of:

Portugal Kale soup

I originally had a picture of the various stuff poured into the soup, but it was boring and didn’t look good, so instead get the UNESCO World Heritage site that I’m using for an image.

Which goes like this.  Brown the onion and some other stuff.  Then brown half a pound of turkey and some sausage.  Add in a can of diced tomatoes and a whole bunch of chicken broth.  Then add in 4 LARGE diced potatoes.  Look at the amount of potato to broth ratio, and think they said to add in way too many potatoes.  Now let it simmer until the potatoes are all done.  Yep, that’s it.  Oh, wait, tear up kale and add it in at the very last minute.

Yeah, that’s it.  I may also be trying to write fast because I still have packing to do, and I think the flowers are conspiring to kill me.  Stupid pollen allergens.  In my mind, I have a quite hilarious visual of flowers marching around with pollen guns.

 

Portugal learning fun, original version

The kids completed their Portugal lapbook (notebook?) on the last day of the woman’s Bible Study, only for me to find out they lied to me about completing it, so they got to sit at the dining room table until they finished it.  Here are the country lapbook pieces. You can get both of those on the Subscriber Page if you JOIN MY NEWSLETTER.

This was followed up by large amounts of extra chores for not doing their schoolwork.  So, the pictures didn’t happen because I was not happy with said children.

 

Portugal Unit resources

Future Ticia 2021 updating this with new pictures, and resources. We watched the Geography Now episode.

After watching several countries in Europe from the first half of the alphabet with significantly shorter videos, they had very strong feelings about having to watch a video 20 minutes long. Seriously, the complaints I heard were obnoxious.

I did not feel pity for them.

None whatsoever.

Portugal books 

• Three Balls of Wool– Technically this book doesn’t take place in Portugal, it’s a family that leaves the dictatorship in Portugal and ends up in a communist country (the story leaves it deliberately vague) and the dismay to find they haven’t left the oppression they thought they were leaving
• A Long and Uncertain Journey– a great book covering the journey of Vasco da Gama, it’s junior fiction, so you’re unlikely to just sit and read the whole thing
• Henry the Navigator (Prince of Portuguese Exploration)– another junior fiction book with lots of great information

Portugal Unit notebooking pages

We used the Europe notebooking pages and filled them out as we watched the Geography Now video above.

The minibooks you can get if you JOIN MY NEWSLETTER on the Subscriber page.

• Portugal Explorers
• Portugeuse Tiles
• Portugal animals (grab the animal mini-notebooking pages)

My favorite fun facts:

• You can zipline across a river from Portugal to Spain
• They have the longest alliance with England since 1753
• There is a dragon-slaying ceremony (I really want to know what this is)

So, what books would you recommend for Portugal?

All the ones I thought of were obviously for Spain, and there are differences between the two.  I had a craft planned, but between all the illnesses this month it just didn’t happen.

More geography lessons

• Washington Unit
• Somalia Unit
• Venezuela Unit
• United Arab Emirates Unit
• Slovenia Unit

By Alvesgaspar – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6580719