...an easy and fun homeschool unit study for a very busy season!
This study is fast and easy to put together, and it is a fun break between the holidays. The kids will learn without knowing it!
Gather your basic supplies.
Look through your books at home, check the library, or check on Amazon or your favorite stores for Christmas in other countries
.Gather books about Christmas crafts for kids
.Find and bookmark websites that look promising. A few ideas:
* About.com has a nice selection of activities and printables
* Online Advent Calendar made by Junior High School students
* A nice summary of customs in several countries
* Another good summary, with different pages for each country. Has links to songs and recipes.
* Yahoo! Christmas around the world, a treasure trove of sites for various countries
* Links to lessons and sites for teachers
Begin linking the ideas.
Pick out which countries you wish to study
Look through your country books and check for any craft or recipe ideas
Pick out sites that correlate to each country you choose to study. You may choose one a day, or one every few days, or one a week, or go wild and have a 'Christmas in ____ ' holiday!
Make a general plan for each country, possibly something like this:
Introduce the country of the day or week. Show where it is on an map or globe, and read a bit about it on the 'net or in one of your books.
Do a chosen craft or two.
Read a bit more, and ask someone to find the country on the map.
Color a picture or do a puzzle about the country or about Christmas in general. Dover Books makes some very cute 'Stained glass' coloring books that are excellent!
Make something to eat for each...or make a whole meal!
Read a bit more.
Check out a website about the celebration.
Finish the book.
On Christmas Eve, be sure to follow Santa's trip with the NORAD Santa Tracker. They present geography facts in their periodic updates on Santa's whereabouts in several languages!
