World Peace Festival

Lane's Montessori invited all of the families to participate in a World Peace Festival. It was the first annual event and Lane wanted to attend. We chose Germany together.
Andrew attended summer law courses in Heidelberg, Germany. We had a fantastic experience living in Germany for a couple months and had quite a few things to show her. Andrew's has many relatives from Germany so he has a connection there as well.
I spoke to the children in German when they were little but I haven't had many opportunities to practice speaking German so I've lost a lot of my knowledge. Andrew and I still remember the basics from all the German courses we took many years ago.
I pinned over twenty sites on Pinterest and when the time came, Lane and I looked at all of the sites together. She chose several pictures to print and cut out. She liked the idea that Hansel and Gretel and Rapunzel were written in Germany. We made a large German flag and found foam letters that spelled "Germany".
I cut the majority of the items for her but she picked everything out, and glued and placed it in the right spots. I think she did a great job. She was so proud of her work and she could explain every piece she picked.

The evening before her festival, we went to dinner at a German restaurant. It's very kid friendly which is nice. Our children are usually given toys and books when they leave the restaurant. I ordered a beer, a rare request for me which was obvious when Gabriel dipped his finger in the head of the beer and stated that he wanted frosting. I asked for more bread for our presentation the next morning. The waitress gave us a ton of bread.
Lane and I arrived at the school before 9 am and set up her presentation folder. We added two children's books from Germany, the bread with Germany flag toothpicks, coloring pages, and other books. Lane also wore a dress that looked like it fit this area of Europe.

The part that I liked the best about Lane's presentation is that she picked it out herself. We collected things and learned a lot about Germany together. She enjoyed it and worked hard.
The World Peace Festival was lovely. There were many treats from countries to learn about while we were there. I think I overheard a teacher say that they were expecting sixteen countries in the festival.
It wasn't lost on me that Germany was placed next to Isreal and we were across from Tunisia. I don't know if anyone else noticed this but it was wonderful to witness my three year old ask about the Wailing Wall, get her name written in arabic, smell Indian spices, and taste flan all half an hour.
Interestingly, I was asked if I was from Germany or told, "I didn't know you are from Germany." That's a tough one because even if I explain that the kids heritage has much German, it isn't even close to the other families where the parents grew up in the other country. His relatives moved to the States hundreds of years ago. So, in comparison to the amazing Japanese, English, Canadian, Guatamalan, Phillipino, etc... families, we are kind of the boring mixed American family. We like our roots even if they are really deep and difficult to find. So yes, the kids are "German" descent... and English, and Danish, and Norwegian... a lot of European countries mixed into one. It would be interesting to have some type of DNA testing done to see where we come from!
She is ready to fly internationally. She wants to visit all of these places, as do I. We recently drove past the airport and Lane said, "ohhhh, that is soooo beautiful." I replied, "Yes, Lane, I agree."