When you first hear the phrase ‘Adventures Around the World,’ what comes to mind? Maybe you might think of an adventure, exploring the world, learning about different places in the world, and the idea of traveling. But is that all there is to it?
You see, so many times it’s easy to get caught up in this idea that one curriculum serves one purpose in your homeschooling: Science curriculum teaches about science. Math curriculum teaches about math. Grammar curriculum teaches about grammar.
And while many times this idea is true, sometimes that same idea can box you into thinking that one curriculum can only touch on one area of study.
But what if there was a way to tie it all together? What if there was a way to have fun learning about math and culture at the same time? What if there was a way to show how it all works together?
Meet Adventures Around the World
Imagine if you could travel the world, introducing your children to culture, landmarks, cuisine, and languages. A way you could learn together, inspire wonder, and engage not only your children’s ears, but their hands, their eyes, and even their taste buds!
This is Adventures Around the World. A learning experience. An opportunity to create wonder. And an engaging look at the world around you.
You see, it isn’t just about geographical locations. Now, don’t get me wrong, you’ll be learning about a country or specific area in the world. But you’re not just learning about that one spot. Instead, this one spot becomes your launching point. From this one point, Adventures Around the World brings together so many different elements of learning – from math to science to history to culture to maps to reading to music to culture and more!
In other words, Adventures Around the World is a captivating learning experience through the lens of cultural curiosity.
Let’s break this down a bit more: Adventures Around the World doesn’t just help you teach your children about different countries and cultures in the world. Adventures Around the World can be your springboard, your launching pad for your entire year’s curriculum.
You can use Adventures Around the World as one element of your homeschooling plan or you can use it as your entire theme! And while you can use it to get a big picture of the world around you, you can also use it as your springboard to create the kind of curriculum you want – a curriculum plan that you put together and that best serves your family in their learning styles.
But how do you do it? How do you take one PDF guide and pull out all these different things? What are the different areas you can learn about?
Now, as you continue reading, you’ll find lots of ideas about all different topics to help you draw out all the things you can do with Adventures Around the World. And, let’s face it, reading a list like this and seeing all the possibilities can be exciting… But when it comes time to take all these ideas and turn them into reality, it’s easy to get stuck. To see so many possibilities that you don’t know what to do. You can’t pick a place to start…
And nothing happens, right?
Before you dive into this list of possibilities, you need to know something very important: Adventures Around the World is not only designed to give you an engaging and interactive look at the world. It’s not just designed to give you a launching pad. It also comes with exclusive tools and resources to help you take these ideas and turn them into reality. Simple, practical ideas you can use and actually do in your homeschooling day right here and right now.
In other words, don’t be overwhelmed by these ideas!
Let’s take a look at some of the areas where you can expand your Adventure Around the World…
Mapping & Geography
Let’s start with the most obvious: Mapping and geography. Now, don’t get scared when you hear the word ‘geography.’ Just hang with me, okay?
As you travel through Adventures Around the World, you’ll be talking about different areas of the world and different countries. You’ll be talking about unique land formations like mountains, deserts, plains, forests, and plateaus. You’ll be learning about the rivers and oceans. You’ll be talking about the major cities and monuments.
What better time to teach map skills? As you travel through your Adventure Around the World, pull out your globe or map – or both! – and find each area you talk about. Locate Uluru in Australia, the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, the Himalayan Mountains in Asia, the Black Forest in Germany, and the Namib Desert in Africa.
Find the different cities where the landmarks are located. Places like the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the Great Pyramids in Cairo, the Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the State of Liberty in New York, and the Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio de Janeiro.
Reading & Literature
As you explore each country in Adventures Around the World, one of the ways you can experience more of the country is through reading.
Read books that teach you more about this country: The animals that live there, the different land formations, the people that live there.
Read books that are set in this country. Books that are written by authors born in the country.
But where do you start? Inside every Adventures Around the World packet, you’ll find a list of recommended books. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it will get you going in the right direction.
Math
It seems weird to think of bringing math into a series that’s all about exploring the world, doesn’t it? And yet, different elements of math are all around us in everyday life.
One easy way to start talking about math is through land area. You see, every country on the globe has a specific size. But how do you start to understand the concept of land area? Well, in addition to the activities to help you with this concept built into Adventures Around the World, you can start by figuring out the square inches of your table. You can work out the square meters (or feet) of the room you’re working in.
Then hop in your car to drive a kilometer or a mile to show your children how big this unit of measure truly is.
You can measure other thing around your house. Measure them using both the imperial system (inches and feet) and the metric system (centimeters and meters) just to see how these two systems compare.
You’ll also find a recipe included in every Adventures of the World packet. Now, cooking isn’t just math, right? There is an art to it as well. However, there’s a lot of math that goes into cooking: measuring, fractions, weights, counting…you can create a whole math lesson through one batch of cookies!
Handwriting & Creative Writing
You can also bring handwriting and creative writing into your global adventure. Now, handwriting is pretty easy to do. Instead of having your child copy one or two letters over and over and over again, have them copy a phrase. But here’s the brilliant part: Have the phrase be about the country you’re studying!
Here are some suggestions for a few different countries:
- Tanzania: Giraffes eat leaves.
- Sweden: The Ice Hotel is built every year.
- Solomon Islands: People use shells as jewelry and money.
- India: Curry is a spicy food enjoyed in India.
- Argentina: The Tango is a dance invented in Argentina
- Canada: Dog sleds are used as vehicles.
You can use this same idea with creative writing. Give your child a phrase to get them going or ask them a question about something they’re learning in the country. Here are some ideas to get you going:
- If I were an animal in (specific country), I would be a ______. My day would start with…
- What place would you want to visit in (specific country)? Why would you want to go there?
- Pretend you are on an expedition to (specific country), trekking through the (forest, desert, mountains, etc.). Tell me about some of the things you see, hear, and experience on your expedition.
- Pretend you have a pen pal in (specific country). Write him or her a letter asking about their daily life.
Science
Now, I’ll be the first to admit: I’m not a naturally gifted science person! And yet, when you start taking an adventure to explore the globe, there is science in everything you look at:
When you visit the Outback or the Andes Mountains and start talking about star gazing, you can dive deeper into astronomy.
Use the land formations and the rocks and caves of different places as your launching point to look deeper into geology or the study of the earth’s structure. In other words: The study of rocks!
Start a study in zoology or the study of animals as you look at all the incredible and unique creates that fill the planet.
Let the leaves, trees, and flowers guide you in studying botany or the study of plants.
You could even weave some chemistry into your studies when you make recipes! Even though we rarely think about it, there are a lot of chemical reactions that take place when you bake a cake or cook a meal.
Weather
As you travel around the globe, you’ll see that different places have different weather patterns. This can be due to current in the ocean, how far or how close a place is to the equator or to the Arctic Circle. Weather is effected by nearby lakes, rivers, and oceans or even deserts and mountains. The weather of a region is also effected by the elevation. For that matter, how long things take to cook and bake are effected by the elevation!
Studying meteorology or the weather and weather patterns can be fascinating as you travel all around the world on your adventures.
Culture
The culture of any given region, country, or small area of the world is made up of so many factors. It includes the food people eat, the type of clothes they wear, the language they speak, the art they create, the music the compose, the traditions they keep, the holidays they celebrate, the faith they hold and more. All of these factors and more combine to help create a different and unique culture in every corner of the globe.
Sometimes it seems that culture is such a big concept that is becomes extremely hard to explore, right? One thing that’s very important to remember when you start looking into culture is your approach. Come at culture in a way to understand the people in this area of the world, not to judge them, but to see what you can learn from them.
Here are some ideas to get you going on some of the big pieces of culture through Adventures Around the World. Keep in mind, there are a lot more components to culture than what you see here, but at the same time you have to start somewhere, right?
Language
Did you know there are well over 6,000 languages spoken in the world today? And yet, only about 4,000 of these languages are written down!
As you travel all around the world, take some time to look at the language or languages spoken in each country. Try to write some words or a phrase in the language.
On top of that, you can use the country as a launching point for learning another language. For example, as you study Latin America or South America, you can start learning Spanish. Or as you travel through Europe, you can learn French or Italian. You can even begin to learn Chinese as you travel through Asia! The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.
Music
One of the big pieces that helps a culture come to life is music. Music can evoke emotions and give you a picture of life in each different area of the world. You can look into the indigenous or folk music of the country – and your Adventures Around the World guide helps you get started.
You can also start studying different composers who lived in the different countries. Learn about Vivaldi as you tour Italy. Mozart as you hike through Austria. Tchaikovsky as you trek through Russia. Or Copeland as you meander through the Unites States.
You could also use different landmarks as a launching point for studying instruments and the orchestra or different styles of music. Take a look at the symphony orchestra as you study the Sydney Opera House. Explore opera as you tour the Vienna Opera House. Explore musicals as you explore Radio City Music Hall. Look deeper into plays as you explore London’s West End.
Art
One of the beautiful and fascinating things about the world is the expression of art. No matter where you go, you can find beautiful things being created. In Japan, you can see the art of origami and calligraphy. The Chinese perfected the art of silk-making and porcelain. Italy is known for its painters and architecture. Madagascar is known for its Antaimoro Paper making. Bolivia is known for its weaving. The people of the Solomon Islands are known for their sand art drawing. Canadians are known for their ice sculptures.
No matter where you go, there is great diversity in the style, the type, and the expression of art. As you journey through each region, take some time to learn about the art forms and styles that were born in this area of the world or created here.
But you don’t have to simply look at the art forms. Look into the lives of the painters, sculptors, and artists born in this country or who spent their lives in this area.
History & Government
History can be seen from multiple different angles. You could look at the history of a specific country or area of the world. You could focus in on specific events that happened in or around this country.
Or you could take a look at history through the lens of the people who live in this area. Like everything in life, your viewpoint of any event is going to be a bit different than someone else’s. History is the same way. The events in history that look one way to one group of people in a specific country may look completely different to another group of people in another country. Try looking at history through the eyes of the people who lived in this area of the world.
On top of that, each country has their own government. Some types of government are similar to others around the world, but each country has its own nuances and laws. Some countries have gone through many types of government in their history!
You can use Adventures Around the World as a launching point to study the structure of the different types of government in power in the world today. Not only the government types that are currently in power, but the different types of government a country has experienced through its history.
Tying It All Together
Adventures Around the World is an introduction to your world. But it’s so much more! It’s not simply a way to find out where a country is or what rivers and lakes and land formations are found there. It’s not a dull, bland, boring look at yet another uninteresting thing.
Adventures Around the World is a captivating learning experience through the lens of cultural curiosity.
It’s a unique approach you can take to give your children a broad view of the world, an appreciation for the cultures and the people in it. It’s a starting point, a springboard for you to learn not just where a country is, but to learn about so many areas using the launching point of Adventures Around the World.
The world is filled with adventure, wonder, and amazement. Won’t you come take a look?
Additional Resources:
- 12 Reasons to Fall in Love with Adventures Around the World
- How to Teach World Geography in a Fun, Engaging Way
- Epic Travel Adventures for Your to Explore: Travels with Gannon & Wyatt
Other Resources:
Elizabeth Tatham, founder of Inspiration in the Everyday, is a homeschooling momma of 5 who loves helping other homeschooling mommas create a unique homeschooling adventure your kids will love…without the overwhelm! Join in on the journey with 7 simple steps to make your homeschooling day go faster, easier, and with less tears here.