Northern Europe, Germany, and Netherlands Study Brainstorm

What's Schoolin'?

We are using Montessori materials and Trail Guide to World Geography for our Europe studies.  I also have the Hands of a Child Europe lapbook.  There is a cool resource recommended in TG called Geography Through Art... which I don't have :(.  Left to my own devices, here are some of my ideas to incorporate some art (and food!) into life/homeschooling.  They have been going to art classes the last 2 semesters so I finally let it go, but this is just too good of an opportunity to incorporate some art and/or crafts.

These are brainstorm ideas... not necessarily what we will actually do!

For Northern Europe, Germany, Netherlands:

~ Make a Viking Rune Stone in clay
~ Do something related to Hansel and Gretel... gingerbread house?  Also, along the lines of the Black Forest/Bavaria... talk about the Passion Plays and Oberammergau  (and show photos)
~ Sketch Big Ben in ink
http://www.dragoart.com/tuts/7389/1/1/how-to-draw-big-ben.htm
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/learn_to_draw_big_ben.htm
~ Make sauerkraut for Germany (which we need to make anyway!)
~ We'll do more Germany things with our celebration of St. Nicholas Day Dec 6th
~ Some Germany ideas from Mr. Donn (always good resources!):
http://countries.mrdonn.org/germany.html
~ Eat potatoes for Ireland (not very creative but it's what I have!)
~ Eat Hutspot for The Netherlands (carrots, potato, and onion cooked and mashed)[update: this was delicious!  Here is the post]
http://www.food.com/recipe/hutspot-44572 (I would just cook all together then add butter and real milk)
http://www.heardutchhere.net/hutspot.html
~ More Dutch recipes here:
http://www.heardutchhere.net/dumeals.html
~ Dutch folk art inspired embroidery?  Here is some inspiration:
http://www.designsponge.com/2009/03/dutch-door-press-2.html
http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2008/12/lets-talk-trends-dutch-folk-art.html
~ A simple paper with the ouline map of Holland printed on it with the words The Netherlands is known for: typed on it.  They draw/label windmills, wooden shoes, tulips, famous artists (Van Gogh and Rembrandt), and cheese.  Same for Germany.
~ castles.org has castles.  They used this site to research 3 German castles for a page from Trail Guide.