I decided to use My Father’s World Exploring Countries and Cultures this year….:) I know that is not something that is very popular with most of the forum ladies, but I felt that I needed a year that was scheduled and planned for me so that I could get myself together, so to speak.
Now we are in the 6th week of school and I am finding that I am having to tweak and reschedule A LOT. I do need to continue with our purchased curriculum, but need to add some artists (ECC art is just crafts) and some more reading for the countries we are studying. This curriculum is mostly geography so there is very little reading scheduled for the week and I’m having a hard time finding subjects that we can read and narrate daily. There are several countries that we are suppose to be studying, but it does not seem that we get much information about the countries other than geographical information.
Do any of you know of a source for book suggestions for studying these countries?
I haven’t seen any of these books, since our library here doesn’t have them. Go to Sleeping Bear Press and look for their Discover the World series for specific titles. Not all of the countries you need are there, but I know some are.
Try these blogs as well: homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com. (Two-week lesson plans based on Galloping the Globe)
confessionsofahomeschooler. She has combined Galloping the Globe with ECC. Download a free sample to see if it’s what you want. She calls it Expedition Earth.
Also look at the Geography Matters website. They sell a book with art projects from different countries, but I can’t remember the title.
I don’t remember how old your dc are, but they may not be too old for some basic stories. These are for China: The Empty Pot by Demi, Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel, The Story about Ping, Lon Po Po (a Red Riding Hood story from China) by Ed Young, The Five Chinese Brothers. For India: One Grain of Rice by Demi.
I’m not sure which countries these are from, but they’re African: Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters; A Story A Story; Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears; Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain.
My family completed ECC in June. Have you been unable to find titles suggested in the appendix of the manual? There is also a yahoo group for ECC users which you might find helpful. I’m no longer on the group list, but I remember files and links for additional study and of course, you can also post specific questions on the list too.
For Kenya, I read aloud Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai in the African Savannah by Joseph Lekuton. (I skipped one chapter which described in detail the warrior intitiation ceremony, but that didn’t hinder the overall story.)
For music, I added the “Classics for kids” website. This worked well for Europe.
Another suggestion is to search for blogs of those using this curriculum. They may offer some suggestions too.
All Through the Ages has book lists by geographical area/country in the back. It covers Africa, Arctic & Antarctic, Australia & New Zealand, Canada, Caribbean Islands, Central America, China, Eastern Europe, England, France & Belgium, Germany, Austria, & Switzerland, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan & Southeast Asia, Middle East, Near East, Arabia ,& Asia Minor, Netherlands, North America, Polynesia, Russia & Central Asia, Scandinavia, Scotland, South America, Spain & Portugal.
Do you have All Through the Ages by Christine Miller? There is a whole Geographical History section of books. I looked through the table on contents and compared it to your list, and it looks like most of them are in there (if not all).
I have been able to find some of the books listed in the appendix, but not a lot of them. I appreciate all of the great suggestions and will have fun looking thru them all.
I may just need to break down and buy All Through the Ages since I have seemed to have need of it several times in the past.
Another option besides coming up with “specific” books is to look in the library–there will be a section for books about different countries. They will not all be extremely high-class literature, but there should be books from a child’s perspective with photos from a number of countries. There are several different series, and some libraries will have one series and some another one.
We did this same program some years ago and we had the same problem. We got stacks of those books, plus we looked up information in our church’s children’s magazine, looked at VOM information, made contact with people we knew who had come from or been to the countries, found online sites, learned a few words in the language, made a few extra recipes, planned a “trip” in each country using the info we’d found of the things we’d like to see, etc.
That is really good advice 🙂 Common sense advice. I should tap into all my resources before buying anything else (that should have been a no brainer lol) I am sure our library does have books that would work and I really like the idea of looking online and contacting people we know who are missionaries in these countries.
We actually have a family from Australia staying with us this week so the kids have had some great first hand experience with their culture.
I guess I tend to think that we are not reading enough good books and then freak out a bit 🙂 However, after looking back through our schedule I see that we can narrate from their “readers”, Bible, science, and some geography. It just may only be one narration a day, though, since we do not read from every subject book everyday. They are learning bit by bit and that is how CM would suggest that they learn. Last year we really crammed too much text by reading too many different things. I just have to remind myself sometimes that less is more. They will gain more knowledge by taking small bites than by over stuffing themselves, right? LOL
There are very cheap rebound library books, as well as new, to choose from at Library and Educational Services. They have many different books regarding differnt countries (not to mention a bunch of other good books, dvd’s and audios to choose from that are cheap); http://www.libraryanded.com/
Sometimes I skim through the books there and make note then check them out at the library. After you create a log-in, then go to ‘library binding reinforced titles’ down on the left side of the screen, then on the next page you have the option of ‘geography’ to choose from; click and there are several choices to look at.
HTH,
Rachel
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