The Beauty of Romania: How We Are Using My New Study

I have been wanting to include some Romanian culture into our homeschool rhythm, so I started working on a Romania unit study for my kids in recent months. As I was compiling resources, I started realizing that maybe other Romanian-American moms like me might like having a study to refer to as well. So I spent most of June putting together The Beauty of Romania: A Family Unit Study of Romania’s Culture, Art, Geography, & Faith and listed it onto Etsy to sell.  I also made a flip-through video on YouTube to show exactly what is in the study.

I wanted to share how it's been going the last few weeks of implementing parts of the study, so that those who are interested in purchasing the study can see what it looks like in my household, though it may be entirely different in your own. 

What is in The Beauty of Romania study?

- An introduction of the geography of Romania with a fun project to create a dream road trip. 

- An artist study of one of Romania’s most famous artists, Nicolae Grigorescu, with a one-page biography and eight of his paintings.

- A composer study of Romania’s most famous composer, George Enescu.

- Three child-friendly Romanian poems, translated into English

- Three Romanian folk nursery songs with English translations with storyboard pieces to act out the songs

- A Christian Hero Study of Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand through a resource called Torchlighters

- Introduction to traditional folk music and costumes

- A blank Romanian flag to color

- A Romanian hymn (Doamne cât de mare eşti!) with coloring page

- Three Romanian Bible verses

Who is the study for?

I tried to design the study to be family-style and adjustable for preschool through high-school. The parents or teacher can omit questions or activities that are too hard for young children. Likewise, maybe the nursery songs would be boring for teenagers, so they can be skipped. But older siblings could definitely help younger siblings with some of the nursery songs and coloring pages, so it can still all be done together as a family.  It probably will work best for homeschoolers since you can easily plug these subjects into your school day. But, non-homeschoolers can easily use it on the weekends, during vacations, or in the evenings. The pace will likely be slower, but that is totally fine!

How We Have Been Using it So Far

I have plugged the study into our already existing weekly rhythm, and it's fit in wonderfully.  You are welcome to use it however it works best for you, of course. You can choose to use only parts of the study you think are best in this season and save the rest. But here is an example to give you an idea how it can be implemented in the home.

Morning Blessing Time:

During breakfast throughout the year, we have "Morning Blessing Time", where we pray, read from a Bible storybook, sing a hymn, recite Bible verses and catechism, and learn manners and a family rule.  I have been working on our Romanian verses and hymn from the study during this time. 

My kids both love lions, so the first verse in the packet was a good verse to start with ("The lion cubs may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing" - Psalms 34:10). My kids are slowly learning Romanian, so I went over all the words and translated them. We watched the YouTube video of a Romanian family singing this Bible verse and then colored their coloring pages with the verse. I made an extra copy of the coloring page and cut it out to match the size of an index card since I organize all of our Bible verses together in a little box. We sang the verse every day for a week during this time. The kids would sing it at random times during the day as well. We also acted it out with lion cub stuffed toys. My parents were visiting the week we started this verse, so it was fun to have my dad help out with it.

We approached our Romanian hymn (Doamne cât de mare eşti!)  in a similar way. We typically spend one month on a new hymn, singing it every other day (Monday, Wednesday, Friday typically). On the days we don't sing it, we review old hymns we've already learned. We actually already know this Romanian hymn fairly well, though my kids only have been singing the chorus. So this summer I want them to learn at least one or more of the verses. I translate the words and they colored the coloring sheet as well. There are two different versions of the song that I love on YouTube that I linked with a QR code.

Tea Time:

We have Tea Time every weekday from 3:30-4:00. We have a different subject every day. So I have been plugging in the corresponding parts of the Beauty of Romania study in those specific days.

Mondays: Music/Composer Study

Music Mondays are the days we learn about a composer and listen to a composition. George Eminescu is the Romanian composer we are studying in the Beauty of Romania study. So we spent the first Monday reading the biography page. The second Monday was spent learning about Romanian folk music. The third Monday will be all about Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, Eminescu's most famous composition. I designed this part of the study to be open-and-go for any parent, even if they have never done a composer study. I have written instructions to listen to the first five minutes of the song and then questions and fun activities to do together. Then the parent and child listen to more of the song and pause, ask questions and do the activity. Kids will learn simple music concepts like dynamics (loud vs soft) and tempo (slow vs fast) through fun activities while listening to the music. 

My son was playing his pan flute, which I told him is like a Romanian nai that we learned about that day

My daughter was playing our fluier we were gifted by a distant relative when we visited Romania two years ago.

Tuesday and Thursdays: Poetry and Nursery Song

We will read one poem for 1-2 weeks and then move onto the next one. The coloring pages matches with the words of the poems. There are simple questions to help discuss the poems. My kids were already familiar with two of the three nursery songs, but they didn't know all the words, so we have been working on them learning all the words. I created little storyboards where the child colors them and cuts out the pieces to act out the verses of the song. My kids LOVE this! 

My son colored the frogs and cut them out and put them atop the background, that he also colored. He used it while singing the Romanian nursery song Oac, Oac, which is about a group of frogs having lakeside picnic. 

Wednesdays: Artist Study

On Wednesdays, we focus on one Artist per term. So, for the summer, we are learning about one of Romania's most famous artists, Nicolae Grigorescu. We spent the first Wednesday reading the biography page about him, then the second Wednesday was focused on the first of eight of his paintings. I asked the questions listed on the page and then we painted our own versions. Having my mother in town was really great because she gave me some background information about what the girls in the painting were doing. Apparently, adolescent girls would gather together on a bench in front of the gate of a friend's home to work on their sewing and embroidery. My mom remembers doing this as a child. It was fun to hear that as we were admiring the painting of two girls doing that exact thing!

My six-year old tried making his own version of the painting, but my 3-year old is not expected to replicate the paining. I just provide paper and paint for her to do her own thing. But I ask her some of the questions, like "do you see anything red? Where is it" "Do you think it is daytime or nighttime in the paining?" 

We will focus on one painting per week this summer. Here are some of the other paintings we will admire and try to replicate: 

Saturday: Christian Hero

We focus on one Christian hero. every month, using the Torchlighters videos and student guide (see HERE for more info on how we study Christian heroes in our family). This summer, we have been learning about Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand. My kids have already seen the 30-minute animated video three times the last few weeks and love it. They have been coloring the coloring pages and we have been working slowly through the student guide, a few pages each Saturday. 

Geography:

We usually have Geography a few times a week, but with it being summer break, I am only doing a bit of homeschool on Tuesdays. So we have a 15-minute block in the morning to look at the map of Romania, fill out the blank one provided in the study, and work on the geography project: creating a dream trip through Romania. 

My parents visited us and brought a ton of traditional Romanian food with them, so it was fun to eat Romanian food while learning about Romania. Future volumes of the study will hopefully cover some of the traditional foods of Romania, but this wasn't a focus in this current study since Romanian cooking isn't my forté.

Here is the link for the study on Etsy. I hope this was a helpful look at how to implement the study! Let me know if you have any questions about the study that I can help with. 

And if it looks like a study that you'd like to do with your family, this week is a great time to purchase since I am running a 4th of July sale through July 6th! 20% off, putting it at $8 plus tax.