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Here is a fun activity for teaching geography and learning about cultures. You can use this with any age child, just adjust the sophistication level of the activities up or down. You can do this all in one day, do a different country everyday, or just do one country a week. Lots of fun!!

Take your child on a trip around the world. Below are some activities that you can use to enhance this activity. You can do one or all ... or none and just take a reading trip from country to country.

1. Create a unique reading and/or activity area or work center. You can set up a whole room for this or just a corner. Use a card table that you can fold up and put away after each stage of your travel. Set the stage on the back porch or patio. The whole point is just to have one area special to your activities and that you can display any crafts you make.


• Make a special entryway. Use store-bought or homemade decorations such as a globe or kids dressed in different costumes from around the world.


• Have a wall map where you can put pins, flags, or other notations for each country and/or city that you visit while working on this unit.


• Set up an area or table where you can display your artwork, reports, etc.


2. Have your child use magazines, newspapers, or catalogs to find pictures of items they believe that someone would need to take on a trip around the world. Have them explain why they chose each item.


3. Have the child draw pictuers as if they were viewing a part of the country from an airplane window, from a train, or from different forms of transportation (e.g., a barge down the Nile River).


4. You could start a travel diary. This could be a written journal with different writing prompts for each country you visit. You could imagine what the weather was like for each country you visit and what you did while you were there. Some pages could be sketches of what you saw on your visit. Below are some additional journal activities:
• Write the first thing you would show a child from another country if they came to visit you.


• Write two or more sentences describing yourself to a person your age from another country.


• How many countries can you name in two minutes?


• Make a list of five foods from other countries, what countries they come from, and what continent the country is on.


• Write an explanation to a child in another country of how the game football is played.


• Draw a picture of an animal not found in the United States and then write at least two sentences about it.


• List five words that you would teach a non-English speaking friend to say.


• Design an outfit you would like to wear as you visit each country.


• Draw kids having a good time in another country.


• List six countries you would like to visit. Why?


• Write a letter to a make believe friend in another country telling him/her about yourself and your family.


5. Create your own recipe book or card file. Keep an index card file or book of recipes from each country, especially the ones you try. Find some that use unusual ingredients or foods that you don't normally eat at home. If possible find or draw pictures of what the finished dish looks like.


6. Learn a few words in a different language. For each country you visit, at least learn how to say HELLO. Try and write the new word or words that you learn. You could even place them on a banner in your activity area or work center. You could leave them up for all the countries or only have the words up for the country you are currently visiting.


7. Play country clues. Before visiting a country, why not see if the kids can guess where you will be going? You could name the continent that it is on, its capital city, a food from that country, the country's current or ancient leader, a geographic landmark, and/or the type of house built there. It would be cool to see how much the child knows of the country before you begin to study it in depth.


8. Create your own passports. Why not make your own passport. Look at a passport (or a driver's license) and create a little booklet that you and your child can get dated and stamped as you visit each new country. You could put a little photo in the front with a physical description.

• Food/recipes


• Maps and map skills


• Local costumes


• What does the money look like


• What sights would a real tourist be likely to go see


• Check for tourist departments on the internet. Many countries have websites set up that have historical backgrounds, current economy information, tourist sites, etc. You can gather a lot of info from these sites and many of them are in English and their own country's language.


• Language spoken


• Check your local library for folklore stories from that country


• Check your local library for travel videos on the country of your choice


• Very often countries will offer free travel information through the mail, this may even include a video or postcards


• A particular art or craft that the country is famous for


• What are the major industries in the country of your choice

With a little planning this can be a memorable activity! There are lots of chances for expanding and learning in a very hands-on way.

Also, if you would like to see prepared lesson plans for different countries you could check your local teacher supply store to see what they have. There are several series and publishers that have teaching activity books that would be useful in this study ... don't over look your library shelves and the shelves of your local used book store.

Another good place to check for prepared lessons and websites is a site that I use quite often for history and world geography. It's called Mr. Donn's and can be found at: http://members.aol.com/Donnpages/LessonPlans.html

Copyright 2001 Kathryn Martinez. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

About Kathryn Martinez: I'm a SAHM, home schooling mother of 4 children, 1 husband, and a neurotic cat. This is our sixth year of home schooling. I worked for over 10 years at USF in an education and training department. I hope that by sharing my experience with other home schoolers, both the new and the not-so-new and those just considering home schooling, I will pass along all the help that was given to me when I first started out.