Most of you have probably heard by now about our big 2017 project. 2015 was the year of the presidents. 2016 was the Election & the Olympics. With no special events this year, Asa and I settled on the idea that we would spend an entire year celebrating every single country in the world, at least by UN standards. That's 193 countries to research, plan for, and find recipes for. No small undertaking, that's for sure. But, we can do it. Every country won't dominate our day, there just isn't enough time for that. But, I think it'll be worthwhile for a whole slew of reasons. I think we live in a world that could use a little more understanding of other cultures, and tolerant of other ways of life. Hopefully, between the geography and history of all of this, they get some valuable perspective.
Anyway, we'll be doing most countries in alphabetical order. Asa and I have a giant spreadsheet of every single country to keep track of things that we could do for that countries day, food we could eat, and a tentative schedule for each one. I pulled out countries for our various theme weeks, and a couple to do when we are on our big trip to Hawaii (thank you, Polynesian Cultural Center). We'll be studying different religions, and different types of government and economies, along with some less structured weeks like Explorers Week, and 7 Wonders Week. I had to schedule all of those, pull out countries that fit, and try and keep an average that will help us finish on time.
For the last couple of months, I've been working on making an information sheet for each country. I really wanted to finish them before we started, but that just isn't going to happen. I've finished 146, although I still have to print out, cut apart, and laminate a whole bunch of those. I'm actually taking a break right now to write my blog, because getting through all those 'Saint' countries in the West Indies sure was something. Anyway, the ones that are complete and printed out, and laminated are on rings for each month. You're looking at January's group right there. For the most part, this month we will be sticking to alphabetical order. Between the Inauguration and a trip to Disney, we don't really have time to sneak in a theme week. We wanted to kick this off January 2nd, but we had some seriously delayed shipments of things to get everything set up the way we wanted it, and now I've come down with a cold. But, we'll get there.
So, I'll give you a tour of our set up for this big project. When we first decided to do this, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to paint a map on the kitchen table to color in the countries after we have a meal inspired by each country. Of course, I didn't know exactly HOW I was going to pull that off. But first thing was first, I had to paint my ugly, falling apart, IKEA kitchen table. The poor thing has been through so much in the six years I've had it, so at the end of this year it'll probably be time for a replacement. Anyway, I painted the top with paint I still had leftover from the Harry Potter dressers.
Once it was painted, I had to figure out how to get the map on it. I toyed with the idea of a projection screen, but it just didn't seem like it would work for all those little countries. After some googling, I decided on carbon paper. I ordered some large sheets, and a gigantic map on Amazon and then waited (and waited..... and waited- seriously UPS!) for it to come. Once it did, I taped carbon paper to the table, then the map on top, and I traced the entire thing.
You can hardly see it, but it did work. I was skeptical when I pulled it off, but there was the world map, on my table, in all of it's glory!
Then it was time to trace those carbon outlines with some more paint (again, just a darker grey I had left over from the dressers). It took a steady hand for some of those small countries, and a finer paintbrush would have served me better, but when I was done, I was pretty thrilled with how it turned out. Using the clear coat I used on the pages of Harry Potter in the boys room (do you see a theme here?), I sealed the table. Hopefully it'll hold up ok. Your guess is as good as mine.
Now to help the boys locate the countries, and to protect my table a bit, we ordered some placemats. Each of us has a different continent.
So how exactly will we color in those countries? Well, this one was easy. Thanks to an art project gone a little wrong, I knew nail polish doesn't exactly come off of the table. I went and got all kinds of colors, and I won't even have to worry about finding a paint brush every night, or sealing it. It will be perfect. Russia and Canada might require something different (or an open window and a fan so we don't all die from the smell -- except for me of course), but other than that, it should work well. I'll keep my fingers crossed though!
But that isn't the only place we have to mark our countries! I also used my Christmas money to order a scratch off world map, complete with flags! We'll scratch off the countries as we go. Hopefully, doubling up like that, plus the place mats will help reinforce the locations of all the countries. We took the glass out of a frame to make it look a little nicer on the wall, and put it next to our dry erase calendar which keeps track of our tentative dates for each country.
On the other wall, I have a chalkboard for our daily country, along with a cork board for the info sheet we're currently working on. Asa also bought me this awesome book that has a two page spread dedicated to every country in the world. We'll have that open to the current country's page as well.
Now, I have these little clipboards with a 4x6 piece of cardstock attached to them. For every country, the boys are going to make a postcard of sorts. I have a little clip frame to hang them on when they're done too, so they can keep their most recent ones hanging up.
Now, we toyed with what kind of incentive to offer for the best postcard. We came up with a cash payout. Everyday each of us will get a dime to put in the jar of our favorite postcard (and you cannot vote for your own). We told the boys they could cash out these jars only twice: once when we go to Hawaii, and at the end of the year when we are done with the project. So, why dimes? Well, quarters seemed like a lot, and pennies and nickels didn't seem like enough.
I think I'm going to try and get a small blog up for each country. They won't be nearly as long or as involved as the presidents blogs, but it would offer everyone a little snapshot on each country, and they would be easy to find that way. I think overall, short blogs might be what I do in general this year. It just seems easier to keep track of it all that way.
So, there's our kitchen now- the hub of our 2017 project. Pretty cool, right? Wish us luck!
Up Next: The first country in alphabetical order: Afghanistan
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