This school year we are doing an Around the World study. I am not using any curriculum, I am creating my own, so I have been planning it out for months and have been itching to start. It has been a blast so far!
I have chosen a few countries to study on each continent (except Antarctica) and have chosen a few topics for each country to dive into. We have been spending a week studying each country. I plan on doing a blog post after we finish each continent to share activities we did, books we read, and links.
This week we wrapped up the continent of Asia after learning about China, India, and Thailand.
We read a couple of non-fiction books on India to learn some basic facts about the food, people, language, and geography. Then we colored the Indian flag and country outline to add to our narration notebooks.
We read about India in DK Countries of the World and read about kids that live in India from DK Children Just Like Me. We have also been using DK A School Like Mine to read about what schooling is like in different countries.
The topics I chose for India were the Holi Festival, Taj Mahal, and tigers.
For the Holi Festival, we did a colorful project with watercolors. My oldest was super disappointed we weren't going to throw colorful powder all over each other- ha! I also made a rainbow snack tray that they ate while I read some books.
We read about this holiday in DK Children Just Like Me Celebrations.
This book Festival of Colors was so fun! The colorful illustrations were stunning.
Next, we learned tiger facts from the non-fiction books I picked up. Then we made tiger stick puppets and acted out our favorite tiger story The Tale of the Tiger Slippers.
And lastly, for the Taj Mahal, we watched a few videos on it and did a watercolor painting from our art course. I didn't know anything about it before our study and it was so interesting to learn about! Did you know an Indian ruler built it for his wife that died in childbirth? Or that the whole building is symmetrical? Or that it took 22 years and $872 million U.S. dollars to build?! Wow, so cool! I have loved learning alongside my kids.
We have been using Art Makes Me Smart: Around the World and have really been enjoying it! They have so many great extra resources and it has made it easy to include fun art projects into our study.
There were so many beautiful Indian stories that we loved! One of them was My Dadima Wears a Sari. My girls loved this one and wanted to wear a sari (women's garment worn in India) so we fashioned some out of baby blankets!
Other Indian books that we loved: Dadaji's Paintbrush, Anni Dreams of Biryani, and Where Three Oceans Meet. To see all the books we used, click HERE.
We wrapped up this study by video calling with my Dad who lived in India for two years! He showed us pictures and told us about his experiences there. It was a great way to finish up! I loved that it made such a great connection for my girls.
I'd have to say that India has been my favorite country to study so far! Now on to Thailand!
Check out our other studies from Asia!
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