Learning About the World

As a child, Social Studies was not one of my favourite subjects. And that’s probably because our textbooks stated facts in a plain manner and no one really explained the importance/relevance of learning about places and cultures.

My kids are still small, but I already have ideas on how to make Geography interesting for them (without letting them know). Sharing my ideas with you…

1. The world map – Each year we travel to some place (India or abroad) during summer vacations – it’ll be a good idea to have kids do some research about the destination they will be visiting, and create their own tour guide. As an after activity, they can create a photo album about their visit to the place and also write about their holiday.
2. Stories – Stories are a wonderful resource to learn about people and culture. As children read books, have them write a short report about the location (non-fictional) where the story was set – the report can include list of interesting places mentioned in the story, lifestyle, culture and any other features.
3. Music – They say music knows no boundaries – today thanks to satellite radio and television, we have access to channels that play different world music. Have children select a music theme/type/genre and find out its origin and how culture of a place impacts the music
4. Food – This is my favourite category. Each time you take your kids out to a specialty restaurant, ask them to read the items on the menu. They can select 2-3 items and do some research to find out the origin of the food – right from where the crop is produced to which country the dish belongs to.

I hope you find these useful, and if you like them, do write back and let me know, so I am encouraged to write more. And yes, if you can think of any other ideas, please share them too.