We decided to play leap-frog over the United States and study Mexico after Canada. Mexico was an easy unit simply because of the wealth of information that there is. We checked out some great books about the geography and culture as well as some board books in Spanish that helped me to introduce the kids to the language.
After a page count, I realized that we were running short of space in our spiral notebook of drawings my 1st grader is compiling. Because of that, she only did one language arts lesson on Mexico from Draw Write Now - the cactus.
We spent a day talking about the ancient civilizations of Mexico (Aztecs and Mayans). We spent another day studying the art of Mexico. This was a really rich unit and could be stretched out over several days if you choose to do so. Ancient pottery, weaving, embroidery, painting, classical religious art and more are all a part of their culture. We glanced over all of these and made a great craft out of a book we checked out: The Aztec Codex. Mine was Spanish colors, my 1st grader did numbers, and pre-kindergartner did animals. They turned out great! It was a good opportunity for them to practice making a plan and following it - always nice to help your kids practice this habit!
Our other three days were spent on geography and culture. A cheap and fun field trip to our International Farmer's Market was the highlight of one of our days. After that, we enjoyed some great regional music and food. The kids loved studying the children of the Yucatan. They really took notice of the fact that children in Mexico often have jobs and help to support their families. Life lessons like these are often missed in other settings. We're on to a two week unit study of the US after this. Some of the books we used for Mexico:
Buenas Noches, Luna, (Good Night, Moon); Brown
At the Beach = Vamos a la playa; Stanley
Children of Yucatan; Staub
Aztecs; Hughes
Mexico, DeAngeles
Mexico From A to Z; Kalman
The Kids' Multicultural Art Book; Terzian ****Great find!!!!
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I am blown away by all this work you've done!! You could totally package and publish lesson plans, I'd buy them!
ReplyDeleteOh, and we couldn't be on more opposite ends of the earth at any one time. We are in India now, about to move on to China. We did Africa for the cold month of January and will do the Arctic last in May. Makes tons of sense, right? Although if you figure in opposite hemispheres, well I won't go there.
ReplyDeleteAre you thinking yet about next year?