After spending six weeks immersed in the geography and culture of Africa, we'll head east and set our sights on learning more about the culture and geography of the Middle East and the collection of sites Christians refer to as the Holy Land. Using Volume 2 of A Child's Geography, we'll immerse ourselves thoroughly in this study for about ten weeks, then shift our focus to a special Advent unit we are preparing. After the Christmas season, we'll resume this block, focusing on Arabia and India for another 4 week block. We are posting the study in its entirety here for those of you who may choose not to take the break with us during Advent and would like to use those four weeks to complete this section of your continental tour. We'll continue our study of the continent of Asia with a separate block on the countries in Eastern Asia after the new year. As you prepare your map work and continent box contents, keep in mind that these tools will be used throughout both of these blocks. You may want to assemble contents for both areas of Asia all at once or choose to focus the work on the Middle East and India first, and switch the focus for the Eastern Asia block. In addition, for most of blocks in our Continents and Cultures tour, our book lists will hold pride of place. However, for this particular block on the Middle East, we are planning to soak in as many of the beautiful learning opportunities Ann Voskamp has provided in the second volume of A Child's Geography as we can. The reading, narrating, and notebooking ideas she provides will be our focus as we learn about the homeland of Christianity. There are also rich and worthy ideas outlined in each of the main lesson book categories below. We have, therefore, provided a suggested book list and organized titles to the best of our ability. Please understand there is much more there than you can probably cover if you are using the full program outlined in A Child's Geography. Therefore, we have not suggested a timeline or weekly guideline for how to cover these books. Our suggestion would be to choose those titles that are available or appeal the most to your family in each category and read them aloud over lunch or tea throughout the weeks of your study. We have included a link to an adjusted weekly schedule so you can have an idea of how this particular block will look in our homes. If you choose not to use A Child's Geography, this list is extensive enough to form a full study all its own. We have tried to be sensitive to religious and cultural differences in our choices of books as well as to current events without delving too far into any of these issues further than is necessary for young children. Still, we recommend each family determine what is appropriate for its own children. If you are using the book list for your primary curriculum, just make your way through the list, narrating and creating a family notebook as you go. Immerse yourselves in the stories by sculpting characters and settings using sweet-smelling beeswax, or craft some wee felt Middle Eastern children to narrate with. Use play silks and lengths of fabric to recreate the dress styles illustrated in the books and dramatize the stories. Add photographs of your work to your family's Asia notebook as you go along. On other days, written narrations and illustrations can round out your study time. For those of you following along in A Child's Geography with us, we'll go back to this focus on the book list when we make our way to India at the end of this study block. So get your passports out again and prepare to be inspired as we travel the lands where our faith originated and get to know the people that inhabit them.
Continent Box Contents:
- spine book
-
puzzle map of Asia
-
outline map of Asia
-
Montessori for Everyone Asia downloads
-
animals of Asia figures (Wild Republic Asian Animals Tube)
-
fabric squares
-
spices (Middle Eastern Spices, Indian spices)
-
coins
-
craft from that continent
Spine Books:
- Turkey (3 weeks)
- Israel (3 weeks)
- Iraq (2 weeks)
- Jordan (2 weeks)
- BREAK
- Saudi Arabia (2 weeks)
- India (2 weeks) (Vol. 1, Ch. 4 and 5)
Poetry and Art:
The Middle East:
Books for Historical Background:
Mesopotamia (DK Eyewitness)
Life in Ancient Mesopotamia National Geographic Investigates: Ancient Iraq
Read Alouds:
Folk Tales for Everyone to Enjoy:
Picture Books to Good to Limit to Little Ones:
Chapter Books:
Arabia:
Everyone Will Enjoy:
Chapter Book:
Read Aloud:
India:
Everyone Will Enjoy:
Picture Books Too Good to Limit to Little Ones:
The Drum: A Folktale from India
Chapter Book:
Read Aloud:
Science Books:
DK Eyewitness Desert-OOP
***Most of the desert books available are focused on the Sonora desert of Southwest America. If you choose, it could make an interesting study to compare the animal life that is found in that desert to the animals of the deserts of the Middle East. If you are interested in this idea, One Small Square: Desert is a great way to investigate the American desert.
Marian Main Lesson Book:
Our Lady of Madhu (Sri Lanka)
Our Lady of Arabia (Kuwait)
Our Lady of Vailankanni (India)
Copywork: Prayer to Our Lady of Vailankanni from the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Prayer
O Most Holy Virgin!
You were chosen
by the most adorable Trinity
from all eternity
to be the most pure Mother of Jesus.
O Tender Mother of the afflicted,
grant me under my present necessities
a special protection.
Relying upon the infinite mercies
of your Divine Son,
and penetrated with confidence
in your powerful prayers,
I humbly entreat you to intercede for me.
I beg you to obtain for me
the favors which I petition.O Mother of God,
accept my salutations
in union with the respect
with which the angel Gabriel
first hailed you "full of grace."I beseech you,
O comfortress of the afflicted,
to obtain for me the favors and graces,
which I have now implored
through your powerful intercession.
For this end I offer you
the good works I do and sufferings I endure.
I humbly entreat you
for the love of the amiable heart of Jesus
with which yours
was ever so inflamed
to hear our prayers
and obtain our requests.
Amen.
Missionary Main Lesson Book:
Map Work: Trace or paste an outline map of the Middle East and India, with countries labeled into MLB. Throughout the course of the study, complete the following tasks and create a coded guide:
- Shade in what we refer to as the Holy Land.
- Mark Babylon, the Red Sea, Jericho, Israel
- Mark Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Galilee and the Jordan River.
- Shade in Mesopotamia.
- Using Acts of the Apostles as a reference, mark at least three places we know St. Paul visited.
- Mark the site of St. Paul's shipwreck in Acts.
- Using Acts to gather information, mark at least three mission territories of other Apostles.
- Mark St. Nicholas' home.
- Mark the location of St. Charbel's monatery.
- Mark at least three locations evangelized by St. Francis Xavier.
- Mark the city that is the center of the work of Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity.
Students should include at least two written narrations of the lives of the saints studied in the geography work and at least two narrations of stories from Acts of the Apostles that highlight the early church's missionary history.
Have students research itineraries for tours of the Holy Land. Then have them plan their own itinerary for taking a group of young people from their church to the Holy Land for ten days. Students should mark the sites they'll visit and travel route on a map and paste it into their main lesson books. On the facing page, have them write a summary of the sites to be seen and the significance of each for each stop on their trip. Students should include a Scripture reference in each explanation.
Students are also encouraged to find a priest currently serving in their diocese who is from India to interview about his home, his childhood, his call to religious life and his experience as a missionary. A written summary of the interview should be included in their main lesson book.
Have students research the work of the Missionaries of Charity in India and around the world. Have them create a page for their main lesson books that summarizes their Rule of Life and the main apostolates of the religious fathers, sisters, and laity of the organization. In addition, the students shoud choose the apostolate that most appeals to them and write a short prayer for the succes of that apostolate. This should be copied into the main lesson book and decorated. Encourage the student to pray that prayer daily.
We'll be offering some guest posts by young Catholic missionaries who have recently visited and shared the Gospel in India. Students could include a response to these testimonies in their notebooks.
Cultural Considerations Assignment: You are a missionary and have just been assigned to spend the month teaching and working with children in a refugee camp in a Middle Eastern nation. Brainstorm a list of at least ten ways you would share the love of Christ with them as their teacher.
Folk Tale Main Lesson Book:
Little ones should narrate the stories while mom keyboards. Printed narrations can be pasted into the main lesson book and the facing page illustrated. These narrations make great reading practice for beginning readers.
Animal Main Lesson Book:
Habitats: Arabian Desert and India's Mountains
Great desert website with lots of animal info: Living Desert
Lots of info about animals in India: India Wildlife
Students can use this list or generate their own from books or web sites. They should illustrate the animal and on the facing page, record any information they've been able to gather including the animal's common name, species classification, habitat, food, shelter, and predators or any other unique facts they'd like to record.
- Arabian Camel
- Arabian Wildcat and Turkish Van Kedi
- the Arabian Horse
- Bengal Tiger/White Tiger
- Asian Elephant
- Leopard/Snow Leopard
- Indian Rhinoceros
- Caracal
- Peacock
- Cobra
Archaeology Main Lesson Book:
Students can do a bit of book or internet research on each of the following topics and then create a main lesson book page that includes an artistic representation as well as a written narration of what they've discovered.
Great website for important bible sites: Bible Places
Nice history of Taj Mahal: Taj Mahal
- the Dead Sea Scrolls
- Code of Hammurabi
- Royal City of Ur
- Babylon
- Ninevah
- Jerusalem
- Taj Mahal
Middle East geography games:http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Middle-east_Geography.htm
