Around the World Homeschool Units

This year for homeschool we decided to do an Around the World curriculum. Archer has been into maps, globes and flags for a couple of years now. He only wants to color if he is coloring a map or flag. He loves map and flag puzzles and toys. While studying countries around the world was a no brainer, choosing our curriculum took more thought. I originally posted what I thought we would do here, but ended up deviating a bit from that. Here's what we have actually been doing:

Around the World Homeschool Weekly Outline:

• Spines - Each week we look at our spines for each continent or country. We have a lot of them, but each section is pretty short.
• Books - I also try to find fun picture books from each country or region. These include books that take place in those countries, folklore, stories of famous artists and composers, etc. Some of these are from Build Your Library 0 and Torch Light Level K, others are from internet recommendations or just what I can find from the library.
• Activities - We try to include some activities related to various countries. I have several sticker books and an Around the World Mazes book. We also have the LeapFrog Magic Adventures Globe we use. Some activities tie in to the biome of that region as we work through the world's biomes. We have also been coloring the flags from Little Passports.
• Games - To keep things fun, I try to include boardgames in our homeschool, both multiplayer and single player logic. Sometimes I can  tie them in to a country or biome. Most of the time, I can't and that's ok.
• Read Aloud - I have worked hard to find a read aloud linked to most countries or regions. Archer is more than capable or reading chapter books on his own, so I often try to pick things he wouldn't read on his own. Honestly, this is the part I most look forward to dropping for next year. I'd rather just find great books to read, instead of being tied to the very limited number of books at the right level set in whatever country. He likes the tie in, though, so I'll keep doing it. 
• Recipes - we've been trying a new recipe from one of the countries we've been studying every week. Initially, we were going to just stick with those recommended in Cooking Class: Global Feast by Deanna F. Cook, but found most of them too simple. They also didn't cover nearly enough countries. The internet has been my main resource for finding recipes. I try to balance trying something that is different from our normal foods with something I think at least part of the family will like/eat well.
• Art - My main goal for art this year has been to push Archer to try new media. If you let him, he'd only ever use markers to color maps and flags. 
• Videos - We watch videos linked to each country or biome also. Archer really likes those from Kids Learning Tube, because they feature maps. He also likes the map videos from We Love Puzzles. We like SciShow Kids for science and biome related videos. Sometimes, I can get him to try other videos too.

Note: this outline only really covers out Around the World activities. I have not included all of our science or any of our math, language arts, social emotional learning, etc.

Around the World Units (By Continent)

Spines and Supplements: