Syria Unit

I was going through my emails to find a recipe and saw my Syria unit recipe and thought, ‘Why do I still have this email? I already wrote this,’ then I came over here to discover, no I never actually wrote my Syria unit. I just thought I had written it. So years ago we finished this geography lesson, and there are some cool things to learn about Syria. It was a fun addition to our Asia Unit. Now, let’s see what all we did for this unit.

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Syria Unit resources

First, let’s check out some useful websites to find more facts on Syria:

• Syria facts from the CIA– I’m always amused by this one
• Syria country report
• History.com on Syria
• Nat Geo Kids Syria
• 44 Facts on Syria– what would this list be without at least one random list of facts with a random number of them?

Syria booklist

I do remember some of the books we read, so now I get to find out if my library still has them and if I actually wrote them down…

I did!

• Cultures of the World: Syria– a good general facts about the country book
• Syria– another book full of facts in that generic written for someone writing their first country report
• Cultural Destruction of Isis– I feel like this was a special request book, or someone in the library had a particular interest in the topic
• Stepping Stones: a refugee family’s journey– such unique illustrations for the book
• My beautiful birds– another interesting story of a refugee family
• Saladin: noble Prince of Islam– such an interesting historical figure to read about
• The Jasmine Sneeze– sometimes it’s fun to just have a silly story like this

Now to our favorite:

Syria Unit videos

I’m currently watching this right now.

It helps me remember what all we learned since we studied the country a few years ago.

And here is the Flag Friday video:

Now let’s move on down to our recipe!

Syria Unit recipe: Sambouseks

I headed over to one of my favorite sites for good recipes and found their sambousek recipe thinking it has the most likelihood of everyone enjoying it.

Theirs are definitely nicer looking than mine. I’m just going to go ahead and say this now.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
• 4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 minced onion
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons parsley
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• oil for frying

Making your sambouseks

1. Combine the flour, salt, and baking powder, then mix in the butter. Slowly add in the milk, egg, and vinegar. Once it has all been combined allow the dough to rest for one hour while covered.
2. While the dough rests, heat the oil, and cook the onions and garlic until the onions are translucent.
3. Add in the hamburger, spices, egg yolks, and tomato paste. Cook until the liquid is reduced.
4. Roll out the dough, and cut out a small circle of dough. Spoon approximately a tablespoon of the meat into the middle of the dough, then seal the edges.
5. Cook in oil until golden brown. Or cook in an oven at 425 for 15 minutes.

Yield: 6 servings

Syrian Sambousek

Print

These Syrian Sambouseks are a unique fried dish to add to your Middle Eastern cuisine.

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Additional Time 1 hour

Total Time 2 hours

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
• 4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 minced onion
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons parsley
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• oil for frying

Instructions

1. Combine the flour, salt, and baking powder, then mix in the butter. Slowly add in the milk, egg, and vinegar. Once it has all been combined allow the dough to rest for one hour while covered.
2. While the dough rests, heat the oil, and cook the onions and garlic until the onions are translucent.
3. Add in the hamburger, spices, egg yolks, and tomato paste. Cook until the liquid is reduced.
4. Roll out the dough, and cut out a small circle of dough. Spoon approximately a tablespoon of the meat into the middle of the dough, then seal the edges.
5. Cook in oil until golden brown.
6. Or cook in an oven at 425 for 15 minutes.

Syria Unit notebooking pages

We used the Asia notebooking pages and filled them out.

I have to admit the whole time I was watching the Syria video I was thinking of the big deal a few years ago when the Libertarian candidate didn’t know what Aleppo was.

I didn’t write down a lot of fun facts at the time, which is odd. But here are some things I’ll add in:

• They have a unitary dominant-party semi-presidential republic
• Palmyra was a huge rival of the Roman Empire in the 2nd and 3rd centuries
• they had the first alphabet there
• Wait, there’s a sword-fighting banquet at weddings, how did I not write that down when we first learned about Syria? That’s AWESOME!

I had two minibooks:

• jasmine
• Saladin

More fun learning ideas

Let’s see I’m just gonna randomly tab through my open ideas:

• Chile Unit
• Teaching kids how to identify leaves
• Creating Summer Funschooling plans
• How to travel with preschoolers
• We didn’t start the fire history lesson

• Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
• Ai@ce, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons