Just before we began our summer break, I put the Continent Box for Europe on the shelf.  I probably should have done it sooner in the year, but for some reason it just didn’t occur to me.  The box has been ready for a long time, although you’ll notice in the picture below that I haven’t decorated it like I did the earlier boxes.  Maybe some day but for now, it works as it is.  I chose red for this box because the Montessori color for Europe is red.  The box is one of 8 photo boxes that I bought at Michael’s.

Inside the box, I have items representing the countries and cultures of Europe.  My son decided to look through it today (even though we’re on “summer break”) and as we laid the items on their country on the puzzle map, I realized that the items I have are very lop-sided to “western Europe”.  It’s no wonder that I know and recognize all the western countries, but barely know the names of the eastern European countries.

In each continent box, I have a collection of animals that are native to that region.  I found it rather difficult to come up with a list for Europe.  I suppose I should have a reindeer, wolf and fox here.  The Montessori Map Work book that we have lists a swan, hedgehog and bull.  I only have a miniature of a bull (from DJ’s farm set).  I also have a set of animal cards that I split up by continent and the only card that fit in Europe from that set was the puffin.For cultural landmarks, I have three from Italy, two from England, and one each from France, Greece & Germany.  Apparently there are no cultural landmarks in all of Russia, Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Romania?  Hm.

The Safari Toob sets represent Europe with their World Landmarks including Stonehenge, Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Colosseum, and the Parthenon.  I added an astronaut from the Space Toob set to represent Russia’s achievement of the first man in space and the little red horse (a Dalecarlian horse) was a gift from DJ’s grandmother to represent Sweden.

As with the other continents, I have a toothpick flag for all of the countries of Europe.  The set even included Wales & Scotland even though they are technically under the United Kingdom, which I didn’t understand until a fellow homeschooler posted a link to this helpful chart on the British Crown:

The flags are usually DJ’s favorite part of the boxes because he likes to pin them into their respective countries printed on paper.  Unfortunately we have discovered that toothpicks don’t hold up very well for that work, so I was glad that DJ didn’t ask to do it.

For currency, I have a 5 pound note from England and a bill from Greece.  Then from the World Coins lot that I purchased, there are 47 coins representing 13 countries.  Of course, many of these coins are now historical artifacts because they have been replaced by Euros of the European Union.  It will be an interesting study when DJ reaches elementary grades.

Our stamps also came from a purchased set of world stamps.  There are 69 stamps from 18 countries.  I’m embarrassed to say I initially had the stamps from Serbia in the Asian box, most likely because I was confusing it with Siberia, which isn’t a sovereign country.  But then, I didn’t know Serbia was a sovereign country at the time either.  DJ and I both have a LOT to learn!  For more history lessons, 10 of the stamps are from Czechoslovakia and 9 are from East Germany.

Following the theme of the other continent boxes, the Europe box has three little Dover Sticker Books representing Russia, Sweden and Ireland.  He hasn’t spent any time with these yet though so I’m not sure what the costumes are like.  But I do know that the Russia book has Matryoshka doll as you can see on the cover, and the Sweden book has a toy Dalecarlian horse.

To fill out the contents of the box, I participated in a culture swap and received the above set of materials from a family in London, England.  DJ was particularly enamored of the bright red double-decker bus.  Although this is obviously iconic of London, DJ’s dad takes a double-decker city bus to work here in the Pacific Northwest, albeit not bright red.  (Sorry for the blurriness.  I was in a hurry and was using an actual camera instead of my iPhone.)

In the same culture swap, I received this amazing packet from a family in Latvia.  The mom wrote a letter, including her picture which you can see in the center of the photo.  She was obviously proud of her new, little country and included some really endearing pieces.  In the top left you can see a CD cover which has a CD of traditional Latvian music that was very nice.  In the bottom left is a “Passport of Latvia” book that is full of the history and culture of the country with beautiful photos.  I cannot wait until DJ can read so he can explore these details of the continent boxes himself.

Click here to see other continent box posts:

Continent Boxes – Asia
Continent Boxes – North America
Continent Boxes – South America