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Ready to learn all about the United Kingdom? Learn about landmarks, culture, and a little bit of history in this kid’s introduction to England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales!
Our adventures around the world has lead us to Europe. We’ve been working through the continent v.e.r.y. s..l..o..w..l..y, leaving lots of space for extra reading, projects, and play. Join us as we visit the United Kingdom!
United Kingdom Activities for Kids
Our kindergarten curriculum dedicated five weeks to European studies, but we spent seven weeks working our way through the continent. We started our winter break a little later than I’d planned, but it was worth it to see my son having so much fun exploring beyond the written curriculum.
Learning about castles and knights, kings and queens was so much fun. The movies and books sparked a lot of interest in both of my kids.
We talked about the real queen, princes, and princesses of England and had a great time pretending to be princes and princesses of the past!
♦ Creative Play with our Royal Family
Our role playing started with crowns and costumes and grew until we had two warring kingdoms in our house! The kids had so much fun creating their crowns and painting castles.
We posted the castles on their bedroom door. To protect their kingdoms they made a moat full of alligators with construction paper and painters tape. Here they are making the dangerous leap across the deep and frightening water!
I found the crowns and castle paintings on Pinterest. Here are a few of the ideas we used to support our imaginary adventures. Ours weren’t nearly as Pinterest Perfect, but we still had a lot of fun.
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♦ Play Capture the Flag
When the two kingdoms started warring I knew it was time to take it outside. We created two “flags” which were just pieces of construction paper with their initials. I taped the flags to opposite sides of the yard, and the kids ran to capture the flag and then back to return their own flag to the rightful kingdom.
I wish I had taken a video of this. It was hilarious. My little people running right past each other. Yelling the whole time. They never quite got the hang of protecting their own flags, but after running the length of the yard about twenty times they were worn out and begging for a royal snack!
♦ Tea Time with the Royals
Baking the cake in their kitchen, pouring tea, and sipping with our pinkies out was at once very British and totally silly. I will need to add a regular poetry tea at some point during the year.
♦ Enjoy a bit of Irish Cuisine
Our culminating activity just HAD to be food. So my husband and son donned their matching aprons and got to work on a delicious meal of corned beef and cabbage. They used a corned beef and cabbage recipe from All Recipes, and it turned out fantastic!
We loved eating our way around Europe – especially visiting a French bistro and dining on Greek “sheep,” but finding a recipe, shopping for ingredients, and cooking together (for hours – corned beef is an all day project!) got us thinking and working together in new ways.
This was the first time my oldest got into the preparation part of the food. Since then, we’ve been reading recipe books and cooking a few meals together every week.
Learn About the United Kingdom with Books for Kids!
Picture Books
We loved the beautiful illustrations of London and Ireland in Miroslav Sasek’s This is Series: This is London and This is Ireland. These books gave us a peek into the sights and daily life in contrasting parts of the U.K.Â
Madeline was a favorite from our unit on France, and Madeline in London fit perfectly with this unit, too! These sweet and funny shows go right along with the book, uses much of the same wording and all of the same adventures, and makes the shows feel familiar and fun after reading the books.
Madeline also goes to London in Season 1, Episode 3 of Madeline, The Original Specials.
Chapter Books
Our Magic Tree House enthusiasm continues. There is such a variety of Magic Tree House books based in Europe. They truly provide an engaging introduction to the world for a young child.
They have inspired a great interest in other places and times with my oldest. He enjoys reading them himself and listening on cd, and they are easy and quick read-alouds for me.
Learning about modern day London alongside Kings, Queens, and Knights of the past inspired many of the activities we/he came up with. We’ve read The Knight at Dawn a few times, now. It is a magical adventure into the times of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
We read this before watching The Sword and the Stone featuring many of the same characters and the mythical story of how King Arthur became king. He also loved the Fact Tracker companion, Knights and Castles for some real information about the sights and times of old England.
Book 15 Viking Ships at Sunrise we see Jack and Annie travel back to Ancient Ireland during the Viking invasion. This was an especially exciting trip, and the Fact Tracker companion, Vikings, gave us a closer look at the actual events, ships, and gear worn by the Vikings.
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 Learn about the united Kingdom with Movies for Kids!
Every Friday is movie night in our house, and the whole family enjoyed the Disney movies Sword and the Stone, Brave, Robin Hood, and Mary Poppins.
We also enjoyed watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and I’m looking forward to reading Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory together this summer!
For more European Unit resources, playlists, and movies see this post.
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Ashley helps parents who want to homeschool find the resources they need to successfully teach their children. Ashley is a former teacher, current homeschooler, published author, and designer behind Circle Time with Miss Fox printables as well as the creator of this website, The Homeschool Resource Room.
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