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Do you homeschool or like to teach your child about different cultures around the world like I do? Here is the perfect book for you. It is All About Indonesia: Stories, Songs and Crafts for Kids by Linda Hibbs. This book covers so much of the Indonesian culture, history, and more. It is a wonderful resource.
Hazel and I read it over several nights at bedtime. We usually read four books a night and counted each part we read as one book for the night. We read until she felt she couldn't take in anymore information on Indonesia. After we finished she did tell me she enjoyed the book and then we had to try some of the crafts and a recipe. Indonesia is so diverse with all the different islands forming one country. The book goes through the different types of places in the country. Through out the book there are also blurbs with words in Bahasa Indonesia and English. The book is full of photographs as well as details of every day life in Indonesia. Throughout the book is information on animals, plants, food and more. There are also many activities, crafts and recipes. There are ideas like making your own volcano, making your own batik, shadow puppets, and more.
We started with making our own batik. However I thought I would simplify it for Hazel and do it on paper with crayon as our wax. However our crayons did not work well. For some reason it did not resist the paint like I thought it would. Oh, well we tried. We also looked at some batik fabrics I have in my collection.
Hazel also wanted to make the shadow puppets. I have been promising her a shadow puppet theater since we went to a shadow puppet show months ago. They provide pictures to make shadow puppets of a kancil and a crocodile to go with the traditional story that is shared in the book. This story is often performed with shadow puppets in Indonesia.
We also tried making the dadar gulung. We were not very successful, but had fun making it and trying it. First we made the coconut filling on the stove.
After the filling was finished we began the pancakes. Hazel helped mix the batter. It is dyed green and traditionally it would be dyed with pandan leaf paste, but we used regular food coloring.
I cooked the pancakes, but could not get them thin enough. They are suppose to be very thin and even like crepes.
So this was our experience exploring Indonesia. This book has a little bit of everything to give the whole view just like traveling there. It is a wonderful quality as all the books from Tuttle Publishing are. It is the perfect book for anyone looking to do a project or teach about Indonesia.
For more ideas and books from Indonesia and/or from Tuttle Publishing, check out:
