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This school year we are studying different countries around the world using Around the World with Picture Books from Beautiful Feet Books.
Due to having a baby this summer, we are working our way slowly through each country, using the time we have while baby naps. I love that this curriculum is set up so that you can go at
your own pace!
I am hoping to be able to compile a blog post for each country we visit, not only for our own memories, but also as a hopeful help to you!
For each country I chose several topics to study. I tried to choose a mixture of local wildlife or plants for nature study, historical people or events for history, and also, missionary biographies.
Doing this helps me narrow down our study and find books and activities that help us learn.
Our first stop was China and we had so much fun! The boys begged almost every day
to do our China studies.
The topics we focused on were: Panda Bears, Pangolins, The Great Wall of China,
and Gladys Alward.
INTRODUCING THE COUNTRY
To introduce the country, we laid out our atlas books and had fun pointing out things we noticed. These are our favorite atlas books: Children's Atlas of God's World - this atlas is from a Christian perspective and focuses on facts about each country; MAPS by Aleksandra Mizeilinska - this atlas uses icons to show local landmarks, food, historical people, and more. There aren't many written details, but it's fun to look at the pictures; 50 Maps of the World - I love the beautiful colors and the many fun facts this book provides for each country.
Another fun book we added in was Children Just Like Me which gives a glimpse into a real child's life from each country. It describes housing, language, family, landmarks, school, and more.
We also used our interactive Leap Frog globe to learn a few fun facts and compare the distance from Asia to North America. This globe is a ton of fun! It includes facts about each country and has a little video screen where you can watch clips about local wildlife and terrain.
There are also interactive games you can play to help you learn more about the world.
We then spent time creating notebook pages by drawing the country and the country flag. Each of the boys told me a few facts they wanted to remember and we added those to our notebook pages. To add some color, we used watercolors to paint our flag and country.
My notebook page inspiration comes from Jodi Mockabee. She provides a PDF guide where she describes how to create these memorable pages. Because we need to create a yearly portfolio for our state, this system works out perfectly for us!
We also colored the country of China on our huge world map from Beautiful Feet Books!
BOOKS (and lots of them!)
The Around the World teacher guide provides short and simple lessons to follow that include reading portions of several specific picture books. I started out using the teacher guide, however, as time, went on I just kind of came up with my own system for tackling each topic. Due to baby, our study times were subject to change in an instant so it was easier to just pick one topic at a time rather than following a flowing schedule plan.
My boy's favorite books from the suggested picture books were: Tikki Tikki Tembo (there is one mention of evil spirits), The Story about Ping, and Ruby's Wish. Although the pictures are fun, we did not enjoy Anno's China. It is a wordless book with descriptions that explain each page. My boys had no interest since it didn't contain a story and I felt that it was all very dry.
We added in a TON of other books, so in the end skipping it didn't affect our study at all!
PANDA BEARS
We really enjoyed studying Panda Bears - it is one of my favorite animals so I especially enjoyed it! I think the boys got tired of mom always exclaiming over every picture in every book!
Our Panda books included: Bei Bei Goes Home, Giant Pandas, Panda Kindergarten, The Panda Problem, A Baby Panda is Born, Dinner at the Panda Palace, and Panda Pants.
We watched this short video on Youtube that provided some fun facts.
The Year of the Panda - this was our China read aloud chapter book and we really enjoyed it!
It isn't very long and provides a glimpse into the Chinese culture
(FYI, there was one use of - "lucky devil").
We used this video from Art Hub for Kids to create our notebook pages. After we painted our panda bear pictures, we wrote down things we learned and wanted to remember.
PANGOLINS
This was a short study, but super fun! The boys enjoyed learning about a new animal that isn't talked about very often. We watched this very informative movie that was suggested in the teacher's manual. And we read these three books:
We tried to do a notebook page, but there were very many tears that day, so we decided
to save it for another time. :)
THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA
We read these books: The Great Wall of China - this book provides a simple introduction to the reasons the wall was built and how it was done; You Wouldn't Want to Work on the Great Wall of China - this book was amusing and provides a lot of details of how the wall was built;
The Great Wall Through Time - the illustrations in this book were gorgeous and fun to look at, however, the text was a bit over my boy's heads so we didn't spend a lot of time with it.
I bought this 3D puzzle of the Wall and we had tons of fun building it together. It is an actual puzzle that links all together without having to be glued. It has thick foam pieces that are somewhat sturdy and was fairly easy to put together (everything was labeled with numbers
that match together.)
*After playing with it and having it sit in our school room for a few days, I would recommend this puzzle for older children. It came apart really easily every time it was bumped. Even though I personally didn't use it, I would recommend this other 3D puzzle. It has less pieces and I've heard good reviews on it!
I definitely had to help the boys, but it was a very fun project and provided lots of entertainment afterwards. The boys used LEGO men for soldiers.
GLADYS ALWARD
I grew up watching the movie, Inn of the Sixth Happiness, so this study was near and dear to my heart. We read these books on this incredible missionary to China: Gladys Alward - The Little Woman with a Big Dream and Gladys Alward: Daring to Trust.
I also wanted to dive deeper in to Gladys' story for myself, so I read
On our last day of the unit study, we read Windows of Our World: an Operation World Prayer Resource. We spent time praying for the country of China and for the local Christians.
RANDOM BOOKS
I have a hard time knowing where to stop when it comes to books, so we read quite a few other books that were about China in general. This was probably a few too many but we had the time, so we dove in!
Our favorites: Dumplings for Lili; Daisy Comes Home; The Warlord's Puzzle; Watercress;
Ling and Ting: Twice as Silly - these two books were so much fun! There are a few more
in the series that we didn't get to read;
Sparrow Girl - the beginning of the story was a bit heavy, but the ending was beautiful!;
Peach Blossom Spring - this is a wonderful example of the consequences of lying.
Our not-so-favorites: Grandfather Tang's Story - this story was a lot of fun and my boys thought it was hilarious, however, it does reference "magical powers" the main characters animals use to turn themselves into other animals. The Cloudmakers - the story itself was okay, it just wasn't a favorite. The Silk Route - we only read the first page! It was not in story form and the information was a bit too much for the ages of my boys so we didn't continue reading.
CUISINE
In the teacher manual, you will find recipes for each country. I think it would be a lot of fun to make a few of them sometimes, but for this month, we opted to eat at our local favorite sushi and poke bowl restaurant.
That is a wrap for our China country study. Next we are headed to Japan!!!