Flat Stanley in China
Whether or not you homeschool, a world travel unit study can be a fun way to help your child continue learning during the summer. My Activity of the Week on Monday was about Montessori Continent Boxes with lots of links about creating a Montessori-oriented study of individual continents.
There are many wonderful resources around the blogosphere that, while not Montessori-oriented, have much to offer in creating a world travel unit. Montessori continent boxes could fit into any world travel unit you design.
Here are some other helpful resources you can use in designing a study of continents and countries within continents.
General Help for Creating a Unit Study
How to Create a Unit Study from The Homeschool Village
How to Create Unit Studies from The Happy Housewife
UPDATE: Should You Use Unit Studies? (with a list of links to all my unit-studies) and How to Create a Unit Study (my posts)
Resources for Multi-Level Learning, Including Resources for Preschoolers
Pretend Passports – a Great Homeschool Tool from Satori Smiles. Check out the links to some great printable “world traveler” passports from Friar Circle as well as other links to printables that can be used for the passports and world travel unit. I learned about the passports at Passport to Fun/Individual Continent Study from Kindergarten Lesson Plans.
Geography Resources from Homeschooling-ideas.com
Flat Travelers Homeschool Yahoo Group – a fun activity based on the Flat Stanley books. Here’s the group’s description:
A Flat Traveler is a person, animal or thing made out of paper. You print or draw your Traveler, laminate it and then mail it along with a blank journal to someone in another area, state or country. The host family treats your Flat Traveler as a guest and takes it places they go. After a short time your Flat Traveler is mailed back to you along with a completed journal and perhaps some photos, postcards and/or souvenirs. You look over your Flat Travelers journey and plot it on a map. Some families keep a scrapbook with all their journals, souvenirs and photos inside.
There are even Flat Stanley Project Template Images from the Flat Stanley Project. Or you can do like the girls at Jennifer A. Janes and make a “Flat Sally.”
I know a number of bloggers who have had wonderful experiences with Postcrossing, which allows you to send a postcard and receive a postcard from a random place around the world.
Teacher’s Pet has some free printable World Cup Country Fact Cards and Instruments from Around the World.
Gamequarium has online learning resources if you search for terms like world or continent.
Delightful Children’s Books has great resources to help you Read Around the World This Summer!
Big Universe has online books such as Kids Around the World.
National Geographic always has beautiful resources.
Homeschool Share has resources for continents and countries.
Lesson Pathways has lots of online resources for the world and continents.
Elementary-aged Children
Members of the Christian Home School Hub (you can join for free) have been working on a 26-week “Passport to the World” study. There’s a link to free Activity pages (free except for a $1/year fee which allows you to download any printables from the site) and more information about the study in the Living Montessori Now Community.
Global Trek Online Travel Journal from Scholastic is a great idea for elementary-aged students but is only available during the school year through June. The journals are deleted on July 1, so they have to be printed out before then.
The Central Intelligence Agency has The World Factbook.
Photo Credit: Flat Stanley in China Photo by jimmiehomeschoolmom at Flickr Creative Commons.
Thanks for the mention, Deb! We had a lot of fun with that project! That reminds me that a friend in Wisconsin offered to host a “Sally” for the summer! I need to check on that!
My pleasure, Jennifer! I loved reading about your family’s adventures! Sounds like a fun idea for your girls’ summer learning! 🙂
Thank you Deb for linking to my blog from your facebook account..YoU are very sweet : )
Have a wonderful weekend!
Patty
You’re very welcome, Patty! I always enjoy your posts! Thanks for your kind words. I hope you’re having a wonderful weekend, too! 🙂
What a great way to learn about the world.
Stopping from Mom Loop!
Thanks, JDaniel4’s Mom! I had lots of fun finding ideas from around the blogosphere for world travel units! Have a wonderful week! 🙂
Great resource list, thanks for sharing! Will come in very useful next school year!
Thanks so much! Have a great rest of the weekend! 🙂
Adorable – love the “Flat Stanley”! Thanks for linking up and sharing this with the Smart Summer Challenge!
Fondly,
pink and green mama
MaryLea
Thanks for your comment! I’m a real fan of Flat Travelers. I’m looking forward to doing the Flat Stanley project when I have grandkids! Thanks so much for hosting the Smart Summer Challenge! 🙂
Thanks for all our your support on Facebook! I wanted to give back to you, so I featured this post on my blog today.
Thanks!
Thanks so much, Kate! I really appreciate you linking back to me! Have a great weekend! 🙂
Wow! Great resources for multicultural learning. Thanks for sharing 🙂
What great ideas! This post is just FULL!!!
I especially love the travel around the world ideas and I am going to link to this post on my website http://www.theeducationaltourist.com where I write about traveling with the kids and learning along the way. Your readers will love my downloads which teach kids about countries like Spain, France, and Canada and the world class museums like Prado and the Louvre WITH fun activities.
Thanks for posting.
Natalie, The Educational Tourist
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