India itinerary

For October, Whirls and Twirls will be traveling to I N D I A !

flag from The World Flag Database

map from World Atlas

 We have three very good reasons for choosing India this month:

1) It's Diwali, the biggest Hindu festival of the year, on October 25th, and there's lots of local activities to celebrate.

2) The Whirl Girl is half-Indian (on her papa's side) and her Indian grandparents are here with us and eager to join in the Whirls and Twirls fun.

3) We are expecting the arrival of a new member of our family sometime this month.  I'm hoping that the enthusiasm and extra hands at home, combined with my own background knowledge and experience in India, will help us keep Whirls and Twirls up and running during what will likely be a sleep-deprived, chaotic, and intensely wonderful family time.

I'm excited to share some of the things that we know and love about India, and to find some new resources, ideas, and friends along the way.  

Here's our tentative plan for this month's trip.  The reading will be ongoing and the other activities we will do throughout the month, posting about and updating them as we go:

Reading: Five (+) children's books and one (+) grown-up books

Field Tripping: Bollywood dance class, Little India, and Diwali celebrations

Cooking: Gobi parantha, mango lassi popsicles and halwa

Making Music: Bhangra and Bollywood

Crafting: Rangoli, diya candles, Taj Mahal, peacocks, marigold and jasmine art

Conversing: maza - one of my favorite Hindi words

Giving Back: Asha, providing education for kids living in slums

We're packed and ready to go.  Here's some photos of India to get us excited for our trip:

(all photos from National Geographic)

 

 

Let's go!

China itinerary

For September, Whirls and Twirls will be traveling to C H I N A !

flag from The World Flag Database

map from National Geographic

It's time for the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, which is my favorite new festival discovery since we moved to Singapore. I love autumn.  How life starts to slow down as the days get shorter.  The crisp feeling in the air.  Biting into a hand-picked apple.  Since we don't exactly experience that change of seasons here in equatorial Singapore, I am happy to at least to celebrate autumn itself and what it reminds me of.  Plus it's a festival of lanterns lighting up the night and mooncakes filling up the stomach.  

There are lots of kid-friendly activities going on around Singapore in tandem with the festival. So China was an easy choice. This month the challenge will be selecting from the abundance of resources and outing possibilities so we don't exhaust The Whirl Girl or her mama. We are talking about the biggest country in the world afterall, and one of the oldest civilizations. Plus about 75% of Singaporeans are of Chinese origin so we are surrounded by Chinese culture.

If you're not living in a place that's as quite as Chinese as Singapore, check out your local Chinese community centers or restaurants. I bet you'll at least be able to find some lanterns in the windows and/or mooncakes for sale. And they may know about other activities happening nearby. Or check and see if there's a local Chinese temple.

Here's our tentative plan for this month's trip. The reading will be ongoing and the other activities we will do throughout the month, posting about and updating them as we go.

Reading: Five (+) children's books and one grown-up book

Field Tripping: Kids' lantern walk, Chinatown, and Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations around town

Cooking: Mooncakes

Making music: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in Mandarin

Crafting: Rainbow rice collage, lanterns, a popup city, panda toy, dragon craft, Chinese calligraphy, mooncatcher, fan

Conversing: 月(moon)

Giving Back: donation to The Library Project

We're packed and ready to go. Here's some photos of China to get us excited for the trip:

(all photos from National Geographic)

Let's go!

Peru itinerary

For August, Whirls and Twirls will be traveling to PERU!

It was time to make a visit to the Western Hemisphere! But where? The world was ours. My hubby suggested that we take a cue from The Whirl Girl and one of her favorite books: Llama Llama Red Pajama. Though it has nothing to do with Peru, it features an animal we've not seen in Malaysia or Kenya. And where do llamas live? Peru!

So Peru it was. That was pretty much all I started with. That and Machu Picchu - a place high on our travel wish list. But with a couple hours of research and a little reaching out to friends (thank you Facebook!), I think we've got ourselves some activities. Like did you know that potatoes originated in Peru? Imagine the possibilities. Or that there are three distinct regions - the Pacific coast, the Andean mountains, and the Amazonian rainforest? Some familiar and some new for The Whirl Girl.

And Singapore doesn't offer much in the way of cultural events about this country on the other side of the world from us, so we are on our own, just like many of you out there who don't find Malay dancers or Kenyan plays every day in your neck of the woods.

This is what I love about this project. It reminds me of travel itself. When you first pick a place, it feels daunting to make plans - hotels, flights, sightseeing all in a place with unfamiliar names and little sense of how sites are connected to each other. And then you start to dig a little bit deeper, finding recommendations in places expected and not, and before you know it, an itinerary develops and the excitement grows.

Some good resources that I found that had Peru-specific pages:

Time for Kids - Around the World

National Geographic Kids

Travel for Kids

So, without further ado, we're off!

Here's our tentative plan for this month's trip. The reading will be ongoing and the other activities we will do throughout the month, posting about and updating them as we go.

Reading: 5 children's books and 1 grown-up book

Field Tripping:Farm visit

Cooking: Potatoes and quinoa

Making Music: Marinera, Afro-Peruvian music, Spanish kids songs

Crafting: Sun project, masks for the Festival of the Virgin Carmen, potato stamping, llama toy

Conversing: Amigo is our word of the month

Giving Back: Still unsure on this too... maybe something with education?

We're packed and ready to go! Here's some photos of Peru to get us excited for the trip:

(following photos from National Geographic)

(and these are from our friends' Peruvian travels)

*Map graphic from worldatlas and flag graphic from The World Flag Database

Malaysia itinerary

For July, Whirls and Twirls will be traveling to MALAYSIA!

Did you know that there are two parts to Malaysia? I didn't until we moved to Singapore and started learning our SE Asian geography. There is Peninsular Malaysia (that houses the main cities like Kuala Lampur and Penang) and there is Eastern Malaysia occupying part of the island of Borneo (which is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei).

This month, our virtual travel is inspired by actual travel. In the middle of the month, we will be taking a trip to Malaysian Borneo, just an hour and a half from our home in Singapore.

For our Kenya visit, a quick Amazon search and a visit to National Geographic's website were a big leap to get us on our way. For Malaysia, it's been much harder to find books, photos and resources. Considering that Malaysia is our neighbor to the north, only a 30 minute drive away, I was surprised by how difficult it was.

But the good part was that it made me reach out into different communities. I've come across some great family travel blogs and reached out to those travelers. I've been in touch with local book stores to see what they have to offer. I've contacted some other bloggers who write about children's books in Asia. (see favorite links in the sidebar). So what seemed like an uphill battle at the beginning has turned into a rewarding search. We like to get off the beaten path when we travel, so it's exciting to get a little off the beaten path in our Whirls and Twirls travels too.

Here's the tentative plan for this month's trip. The reading will be ongoing and the other activities we will do throughout the month, posting about them as we go. To find links to each activity, check out our Malaysia album.

Reading: Our 5 children's books and 1 grown-up book are picked and in hand.

Field Tripping: Trip to Borneo (orangutan reserve, national parks and cultural center) and the Singapore Orchid Garden

Cooking: Pandan Chiffon Cupcakes

Making Music: Dikir barat

Crafting: Collage, Kid-friendly Batik, 3-D Rainforest Collage, leaf stamping, proboscis monkey puppet, and rhinoceros hornbill paper craft

Conversing: jalan-jalan

Giving Back: Donation to Orangutan Foundation International, an organization working to save the orangutans, whose Bornean and Sumatran habitats are in grave danger.

We're packed and ready to go! Here's some photos of Malaysia to get us excited for the trip:

(from our own photo library of previous trips to Malaysia)

(and the following photos courtesy of National Geographic)

*Map graphic from worldatlas and flag graphic from The World Flag Database