Around the World in a Month

Our homeschool academy has two days left before a long break until after the New Years! I am excited for the change of pace for several weeks, but it is a little daunting to think of the long days at home, and Will comes home later now because basketball has started. So, what will we do to fill our time?

This summer, as we planned our unit days, we decided to do Holidays Around the World for December. It is a perfect inquiry study for the break because we will have lots of time to study! 

This evening I asked the boys what countries they wanted to learn about. I told them to pick from the flags that are hanging up (from the Olympics still! ;) ) plus a couple of others not up. I love that even Liam is recognizing the flags and countries since they have been up since the summer, so maybe its a good thing they never came down! 

They picked Italy, Brazil, Japan, Kenya, and India! The plan is that each week we will focus on a country, read some books, and try out the food. 

Here are some resources and ideas if you want to plan country studies for your kiddos at home or school:

Give your Child the World is an AMAZING resource! We did a book club with it this summer, and it is definitely a resource that I will keep coming back too. I went through and made a list of some books to put on hold at the library. 

For food options, I am going to check out some recipes from Global Table Adventure. A family has made recipes from every country in the world and blogged about it! How cool is that?! I think it would be fun to try out some different restaurants, and I will ask some friends for their favorite recipes too! 

As we learn and do some research, I think we will try out these books that I made. I am not sure we will use all the pages, but I do want Alex to record some of what he has been learning! There are currently 11 books in this set, but I am going to be adding 3 more soon! You can read more about suggestions on how to use it here, or check out the resource on TPT by clicking on the picture!

Don't forget to buy a map so you can keep track of the countries you learn about! We add pins to the countries that we read about, and we refer to the map often when we are talking at the table. The world is so big and the kids need a visual to help them understand where they are in relation to everything else!

Once we get started, I will try to share our activities each week! I need to catch up on some things that have been going on in third grade too!

What countries would you want to study?