Countries of the World

This week in Social Studies we began discussing other countries.  After brainstorming with my awesome colleagues we came up with some fun and quick activities most of which we used our smartboard for.

Here's a list of some of the things we did for each country (this week was Japan, Mexico, and Australia)

*Checked the weather and what time of the day it was in that country.

*Looked at the McDonald's site for that country  (so simple, right? but they were fascinated)  Click here to check out the website for Japan's McDonald's. (Above is the McDonald's we ate at while we were in Cozumel, Mexico. My own kids were so fascinated by this I decided to add it into our countries of the world lessons.)  The kids were shocked that in Japan they eat eggs on their hamburgers!

*Watched a children's program in another language.  If you get on You Tube you can find things like Bob the Builder in Japanese.  Click here to check it out.

*Found how to say "hi" and "good-bye" in each language and greeted/said farewell in that language

*Translated our names into Japanese and practiced writing them.  Click here to go to the website we used to do this.  Some names don't translate so we would just pick a name that was "close enough."

*We watched another You Tube video that showed the kids the countries on each of the continents.  So the day we talked about Japan we showed the video "The Countries of the World: Asia"  Caution:  this song will stick in your head all day and the kids will sing it at odd times throughout the day!

*One of my coworkers made a very cool fact/activity sheet to go with each country

These things were super simple and the kids LOVED  it!  Funny story:  as I'm tucking my kindergarten daughter into bed one night she said "Mom!  Did you know there is a country named Turkey?  How cool is that?"  Another night I went into her room and she had the covers pulled over her head and was practicing saying "Buenos Dias."  I love that she was still thinking about Social Studies both nights 5 hours after school was over!  So cool!