Global Discovery Activities for the Elementary Grades

Author: Elizabeth Crosby Stull

Price: $29.95

Overall Rating (1-10): 10

Value (1-10): 10

Flexibility (1-10): 10

Ages/Grades: K-6:

Review:

Global Discovery Activities is a resource book for teachers and homeschoolers who are interested in expanding cultural literacy. This expansive book is filled with hundreds of activities supporting cultural awareness around the world. It contains hundreds more reproducible activity sheets to supplement activities and reading, as well.

The book is laid out in a really neat way. It is divided by cultural region. This is appealing to folks who practice a unit study approach to Homeschooling. It is very simple to study geography and incorporate these activities, by region, into your curriculum. Likewise, this is an invaluable guide to historical and culturally-accurate references and resources.

The cultural regions covered in this book include Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Caribbean and other islands, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Latin America, Canada, Native American Cultures, and the US.

For each region, you start out with a nicely organized list of recommended reading. I really like that this is the first (instead of the last) offering to the teacher as this helps me organize the lessons. I can put appropriate books on order at the beginning which leaves plenty of time to receive them and read through them before we finish a region. For each book, a nice summary explains the content of the book which helps pick through the stories for age-appropriateness and interest level.

The second section of each region offers information about folk tales in that region. Extensive history is given about the role folk tales played in each region. Suggestions for folk tale classroom activities follow the folk tales section of each region. Most of these activities can easily be converted to Homeschool classrooms. Each region has a dozen or more activity suggestions to choose from. This is so great for the hands-on learner. Following that is our favorite section of each region: Celebrations! We loved reading about the celebrations that traditionally take place around the world. It's amazing to learn just how different the customs and traditions are even within each region. It would be easy to incorporate these celebrations into a Homeschool family calendar and reenact them at home! Again, a series of activities for classroom celebrations is offered. Almost all can be used at home and many would make for great Homeschool cooperative or group activities.

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