Not only do my 4 kids (ages 2 to 8) love these stories, my husband and I love them as well. There was one time that my husband and kids listened to a story in the car while I ran into Target during a family vacation. I listened to it on my own with headphones later that day, so that I wouldn’t miss any of the stories. They are educational, wholesome, and delightful.

Product: Around the World Stories (Affiliate Link)
Recommended Age Range: Kindergarten, Elementary
Time Required: about 30 minutes per story
Cost: $135 for all 52 stories or $15 per month

Bottomline

If you have a child between the ages of 4 and 10, these audio stories are the perfect way to spend time in the car. They teach your child about other countries and cultures in a way that is fun, memorable, and wholesome. There are 52 stories total each about 30 minutes long. Each story features a child from a different European country (Germany, the Netherlands, France, Denmark/Sweden, Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Poland, England, and Greece). The same child is followed for 4 stories in a row, and the gender of the child alternates from one country to the next.

There is a website that goes along with the stories that provides supplemental material for each country. We did not end up using the website that often, but the stories themselves are pure gold for igniting a child’s imagination. My kids would get excited about something they learned about in the story and we would follow the rabbit trail on our own, watching Youtube videos about the ice hotel in Sweden, doing our own Picasso inspired art projects, or reading (sometimes abridged) stories by famous authors like the Brother’s Grimm, Dickens, and Shakespeare.

My Favorite Thing About These Stories

The main advantage of these stories is the connections children are able to make. I can not even begin to describe how learning about all these places and the lives of these fictional kids has tied everything together for my own family. My kids will frequently hear something and relate it back to one of these stories. For example, we saw a book about The Little Mermaid in a store and my 6 and 8 year olds remembered that it was written by Hans Christian Anderson who was from Denmark, because that was the statue Anders saw when he was trying to understand his culture’s practice of hygge.

What if I Have Kids of Different Ages?

This is my 6 and 8 year olds’ favorite thing to listen to in the car. My 4 year old, who frequently complains during longer audiobooks, never complains during Around the World stories. (My baby doesn’t complain for that matter either. I think because the narrator’s voice is very soothing.) As I’ve mentioned, my husband and I enjoy these stories as well. I could imagine that maybe there would be some pre-teens and teenagers who would feel too grown up for these stories since they usually feature kids around the age of 9, but generally speaking, I think they are perfect for whole family listening.

How Do These Stories Fit into Homeschooling?

In my opinion, these stories are exactly what Charlotte Mason meant by a living book (except for the fact that they aren’t actually books). If Charlotte Mason knew what an audiobook was, I think she would be a huge fan of this series. They make learning about other cultures engaging by following the lives of “living” (though fictional) people that have real relationships, emotions, and dilemmas. My kids can imagine themselves being in these foreign lands, because they can relate to the main characters. They remember what they “learn,” because they don’t think of it as learning. They think of it as enjoying a fun, entertaining story.

That being said, while I love the Charlotte Mason philosophy, I don’t consider myself a Charlotte Mason homeschooler. These stories would fall into the category of Social Studies, but personally I use a separate history curriculum. However, I think these stories are a worthy supplement to any educational path. I think going down the rabbit holes that originate from these stories would be the perfect starting place for unschoolers.

Are they worth the money?

I definitely think so. At the time of this writing, you can either get all 52 stories for $135 or pay $14.95 per month for a story each week. That comes out to no more than $3.50 per story. ($2.60 per story if you buy all 52 at once.) I will happily pay $3.50 for that much education and entertainment for our entire family. I cannot think of $3.50 better spent.

Even though we hadn’t finished the European stories when the first Asia story was released, I immediately subscribed to those stories as well. That’s how much my family loves them.

Summary

In the name of fairness, I am going to do my best to come up with as many negatives and be as critical as possible be in this section. However, it will be hard. I love these series so much, the biggest con in my opinion is that we want to listen to them faster than they are coming out.

Pros

• Perfect for the entire family.
• Educational. They seamlessly interweave a lot of historical and cultural information about each country into each story.
• Engaging. My kids and I think they are so much fun.
• Great length. 30 minutes is a wonderful length, because we can usually complete one in a day of errands. If we don’t quite finish, my kids always want to sit in the car after we get home to hear how it ends.
• Wholesome. These stories are just so delightful and sweet. They teach great values like helping others, taking responsibility for our actions, working hard, and not being materialistic (just to name a few).
• Spark curiosity. They make my kids curious to learn more about other countries. I love all the extended learning that comes out of listening to these stories.
• Memorable. My kids form long-lasting connections between places and important people and events, because they tie them back to the main characters that they love.
• Portable. I love that you can either stream the stories from your phone or download them in mp3 format.

Cons

• In a family with older kids, these stories might feel a little young as the main character is usually between the ages of 8 and 10. I plan to re-listen to them in a couple years so that my baby and toddler can enjoy them. Personally, I think even my older kids will continue to enjoy them.
• I think the supplemental material on the website could be better curated. It is great that they give you ways to continue learning, like conversation starters or more educational facts. They usually give you a way to extend your learning like with a YouTube video. I would love to see links to more resources like recipes, music, photo galleries of these countries, and more related YouTube videos that are appropriate for kids. I usually end up doing this part of my own, but it can be time-consuming.
• This is not necessarily a con, but just be aware that the stories are a mix of realism and fantasy. The earlier stories are completely realistic, if somewhat far-fetched at times. However, later in the series, some of them move into the completely fantastical with leprechauns, fairies, and time machines. Personally, I prefer the realistic ones while I think my kids prefer the more magical ones, so maybe it’s good that there is a mix.
• 2 of the stories focus on personified animals, not people. The featured child is still part of the story by the end of the 30 minutes, but the first part of the story is a little odd in that it doesn’t follow the pattern of the previous groups of 4 stories. This is not necessarily a con. Again, I preferred the stories with real people, but my kids didn’t comment on the change.
• One of the stories features additional voices. As this was their first series of stories, it seems like they did a lot of experimentation. The main narrator is a man with a very soothing, mellow voice. He is great at altering his voice for different characters, including women. However, in one of the stories about Spain, they added female voices in for some of the main characters. Personally, although I was surprised at first, I didn’t mind the switch. My 8 year old son, on the other hand, was pretty upset about it. Thankfully for him, they switched back to their traditional style quickly.
• A couple errors. My kids picked up on one of the princess’s name from the Netherlands changing very slightly between part 1 and part 2 of the story. Since this story featured actual people, I assume the makers were informed they were pronouncing the name wrong. Similarly, the pronunciation of hygge changed from one story to the next, I assume for a similar reason.

All in all, my complaints are pretty minor relative to the benefits my family has seen. If you decide to try these stories, I hope your family enjoys them as much as my family has! If you would like to use my affiliate link to purchase these stories, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. No pressure. ;)

Related Links

Geography Activities for Kids
Learning Activities for Kids
Play Activities for Kids

The post Around the World Stories Europe Review appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

If you wanted to extend this activity further, it turns out the U.S. Mint has free 50 State Quarters Program^® lesson plans for K-6. My daughter keeps finding coins from the America the Beautiful Quarters^® program, so we may need to start a collection for that soon too. I never realized, but it turns out there are also commemorative penny and nickel collections. Who knew?

If, like us, you are also studying U.S. geography, be sure to check out my United States toothpick map for a fun, hands-on activity for learning the locations of all the states!

Recommended Age Range: Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle School
Time Required: ~15 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Free printable, about a dollar for a piece of foam board

Materials:

• 2 sheets of paper for printing the United States quarters collection printable
• foam board (at least 11 inches by 16 inches)
• tape (we ended up using double-sided, but either will work)
• quarters!

Supplies & Tools:

• glue stick
• X-acto knife
• scissors

Instructions:

1. Print out 2 pages of the Unites States quarters collection printable. Note that the first 2 pages are in color and the last 2 pages are black and white, so choose whichever works better for you.
2. Glue the left page onto the upper left hand edges of the foam board.



3. Cut off the extra little strip of paper on the second page as shown.



4. Glue the second page onto the foam board, overlapping with the first page slightly to line up the letters



5. Use an X-acto knife or other sharp cutting tool to cut off the extra foam board around the edges of the paper.



6. Give your child a few coins to start their collection and let them find the states on the board. Readers can use the alphabetized names. Non-readers can match pictures.



7. Use tape to attach the quarters to the board. We used double sided tape which had the advantage that if we wanted to switch quarters, we didn’t pull the tape off the board, just the quarter, but rolling up single sided tape works too.



8. Make sure to push on the quarters to get them to stick.

Have fun with your new coin collection!

Click here for more Geography activities and printables for kids.

Related Links

History Activities for Kids
Social Science Activities for Kids
Government and Civics Activities for Kids

The post United States Quarter Collection appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

There are geography products on the market involving straight pins that look amazing (see for example Pin It! Maps), but I have two issues with these. One, I don’t trust my older kids not to leave straight pins out where my baby or toddler can find them. Two, those products are expensive and my hubby is ultra-frugal. It would be a hard sell to convince him to shell out that kind of cash on maps.

As an alternative, I decided to make my oldest this “toothpick map” for the United States of America, since that’s what he’s studying this year. (In case you’re interested, we’re using this curriculum (not an affiliate) combined with this Smart About the 50 States book. My son loves it. Learning about the states is one of his favorite parts of our homeschool day.)

I particularly like using toothpicks for a couple reasons. First, they just seem safer to me than pins. I cut off the ends, so even if my baby finds one, he’s unlikely to hurt himself. Second, I can pre-punch all the holes into our foam board and they fit inside and stand up easily without having to poke different holes on each attempt. However, if you REALLY wanted to use straight pins instead with the flags/labels I made, I’m not going to stop you. They would also work.

All the pictures in this post show the version I made, which is in color, but for your convenience, I also am including a black and white version in my free printable. Your kids could even color it in themselves. Just makes sure to match the colors of the states in the labeled and unlabeled versions in order to make identifying states using the control map easier. Also, I wanted my hands-on map to be bigger than a single sheet of paper, but not everyone might. You’ll notice in the printable that there are single and double page options for both the blank toothpick map and the labeled control maps. I chose to use the double size map for the toothpicks and the single page map for the control sheet which we use to check answers. Lastly, I don’t really care if my kids can identify state flags. I just want them to know where states are. However, for added fun, I put the state name on one side of the label and the state’s flag on the other.

Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but I’ve been using this map for the past day and on my last try, I got 46 states right. (Okay, my husband helped a little.) My son is also improving in his ability to identify where states are (though to be honest, he was already pretty good at it). Isn’t hands-on learning the best?

I fully intend to make toothpick maps for countries on each continent at some point in the not-too-distant future (I hope). Sign up for my newsletter if you’d like to stay in the loop with what I’m working on.

Recommended Age Range: Elementary, Middle School, High School, adulthood (for people like me)
Time Required: ~90 minutes (it does take some time…for older kids, maybe have them glue all those flags!)
Difficulty: Easy (initially I was having a little difficulty poking holes with my toothpick in the foam board, but I discovered a trick described below)
Cost: Free printable, a couple dollars for toothpicks and foam board

Materials:

• Paper for printing United States of America Toothpick Map printable (Note: you will not need all of these pages. See instructions.)
• a piece of foam board (no bigger than 17″x11″ is needed)
• contact paper or clear laminate (optional, for reinforcing labels on toothpicks…I used this)

Supplies & Tools:

• toothpicks (50 plus a couple extra for poking holes, just in case one gets bent)
• scissors
• X-acto knife (or other tool for cutting foam board)
• glue stick
• nail or screw (not shown, recommended for starting holes in foam board)

Instructions:

1. Print out the desired pages from the United States of America Toothpick Map printable. You will definitely need page 1 which has the labels. I chose to print the colored, single page control map on page 2 and the colored, double-page blank map on pages 8 and 9. You may prefer to use only single or double pages and/or to print in black and white.
2. Glue the blank map onto the piece of foam board. Since I used a double page map, first I glued the left page onto the corner of the foam board.



3. If you are using a double page map, cut along the gray line to remove the extra paper from the right page.



4. Apply glue to the foam board and the back of the paper.



5. Line up the right hand paper with the left hand paper to make the double page map.



6. Next, you will need to poke holes in all the states with the toothpick. I first started doing this by just using a toothpick. However, after breaking a couple toothpicks, I discovered this process was much easier if you used a sharp instrument like a nail or screw to start the hole before using the toothpick.



7. Next comes the toothpick labels. I decided to use a piece of clear laminate to reinforce the labels to make sure they would last for all 4 of my kids. If you only have responsible children, you could probably skip this step. If you are going to reinforce them, make sure you only apply the covering to the top side of the paper.



8. Cut out the flags.



9. Fold each label in half.



10. Glue each label onto a toothpick.



11. Cut off the sharp end of the toothpicks.



12. Insert all the toothpick labels into the appropriate states.



13. If you haven’t already, cut around the paper on your foam board. I used an X-acto knife.



14. If any of the labels come off the toothpicks when you are poking them into the holes, just apply some more glue to the toothpick and stick the label back where it belongs. This happened to a couple of ours the first time we used the board, but hasn’t happened since.

To use the United States of America toothpick map, learn about the states a few at a time. Smart About the 50 States is a good resource for this, particularly for children in early elementary. Give your child the flags for the states studied and see if they can remember where they belong. They can check their answers using the control map. Mistakes are totally fine! They can just try again next time. Once they become good at the states they’ve learned, gradually add more until they can remember the whole map.

Enjoy!

Click here for more Geography activities and printables for kids.

Related Links

History Activities for Kids
Social Science Activities for Kids
Government and Civics Activities for Kids

The post United States of America Toothpick Map appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Even if you don’t have a Little Passports subscription, there are lots of great ways to learn about the country. Our favorite picture books were Brazil ABCs and The Great Kapok Tree. My son was in kindergarten at the time, but I feel they are good books for younger and older children as well. Another great book about the rainforest and the people who live in it appropriate for slightly older children is The Shaman’s Apprentice. All of these books were available through our library system.

We also were able to rent the kid’s movie, Rio, from our library, which we all enjoyed. It features many of the terms featured in these cards such the Rio Carnival, Christ the Redeemer, and the Amazon Rainforest. (We still haven’t seen Rio 2, but I’ve heard that it’s a fun kid’s movie as well.) To take the Brazil experience even farther, you could watch a capoeira video on YouTube, try listening to some samba music on Pandora, or make a recipe for feijoda.

Lastly, if you really want to make sure your kids retain something about Brazil, you could try using these Montessori-inspired Brazil cards featuring 20 terms related to Brazil. I *meant* to get these cards up before the Summer Olympics, but, you know, life.

These informational cards feature the following terms:

• Brazil
• Flag of Brazil
• Christ the Redeemer
• Copacabana
• Monumental Axis
• National Library of Brazil
• Juscelino Kubitschek Bridge
• Ibirapuera Park
• Maracanã Stadium
• Rio Carnival
• Amazon Rainforest
• Amazon River
• pantanal
• sertao
• Igauza Falls
• feijoada
• samba
• capoeira
• favela
• Yanomami

I recommend spending some time getting familiar with Brazil first, before using these cards. Then go over each of the control cards a few at a time until your child has been introduced to all the terms. Then give them a chance to match the split cards on their own using whatever combination is most appropriate for them (for my 6 year old, that would be the big label and the image). By having to recall the information on their own, they are more likely to remember the terms. Hopefully, they will consider the challenge more like a game than a chore. If they don’t, you can turn the activity into an actual game by flipping all the cards upside down and playing a multi-player memory style matching game, using the control cards for reference to see if they got a match.

Recommended Age Range: Kindergarten, Elementary
Time Required: ~30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Free printable, less than $3 to laminate

Materials:

• Paper for printing Brazil cards and corresponding control cards. (Note that the last 2 pages of each document do not need to be printed as they just contain legal information regarding sharing and image sources.)
• 15 thermal laminating pouches

Supplies & Tools:

• Laminator
• Paper trimmer or scissors

Instructions:

1. Print the Brazil cards and corresponding control cards.
2. Laminate them using thermal laminating pouches (optional, could also use contact paper or not laminate them at all).
3. Cut them out.

Click here for more Social Science activities and printables for kids.

Related Links

History Activities for Kids
Geography Activities for Kids
Montessori-Inspired Cards

The post Brazil Cards appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Despite the wide acceptance of GPS and smart phones, I think it’s important that my kids know how to read a map when they are older. We recently had a family vacation in San Diego and went to Sea World and the San Diego Zoo. When I got home and saw the crumpled up maps in my backpack, I decided to make it into a homeschooling activity for my kindergartner. Thankfully, we’d also saved a Legoland map as well. Large amusement park maps definitely work best for this activity, since they are so easy to read, but no worries if you don’t have any saved. Just google “map” along with your theme park of choice and you’ll almost certainly find a printable map.

Here are a few I found:
San Diego Zoo
Sea World San Diego
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Disneyland
Legoland California

There are so many options when it comes to amusement park map activities.

1. With the youngest kids, just look at the pictures and describe the things you see. When they’re ready, show them the paths and how you can walk from one landmark to another.
2. Show them how they have to take into account barriers like bushes and buildings when deciding where to go.
3. Ask them to plan a fun day while drawing on the laminated map to show the paths they would take.
4. As they find all the things they want to see, interrupt and ask them to find certain things along the way: restrooms, food, first aid, shops…This way they can learn how to interpret a legend and the meaning of different symbols on the map.
5. Have them write out a story about their fantasy day.
6. Give them a show schedule and ask them to plan out the day around the shows they want to see to minimize walking and still see everything.

While map activities are definitely open-ended, I’ve made a free printable to get you started.

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary
Time Required: ~5 minutes to laminate map
Difficulty: Really Easy
Cost: Practically Free

Materials:

• Map from an amusement park or printed map (see suggestions above)
• Contact paper for large map or laminating pouch for printed map.
• Free printable Day of Fun activity sheet (optional)

Supplies & Tools:

• laminator (if using laminating pouch)
• scissors (if using contact paper)

Instructions:

1. Print out the Day of Fun activity sheet (if using).
2. Cut 2 pieces of contact paper big enough to cover the map.
3. Peel the back off one sheet of paper. (My trick is to tape one end to the floor if I don’t have a helper to hold it for me. Otherwise it’s a little hard to peel the backing off cleanly.)



4. Place the map on a peeled sheet of contact paper.



5. Peel the backing off the other piece of contact paper and lay it on top.
6. Cut around the edges.

Once you have a laminated map, you can give your child a marker and let them have fun “planning” their day on the map. My kindergartner wanted to make sure we did the “tranrid” (train ride) and saw the “grilu”s (gorillas). His spelling may need some work, but I love when he is motivated to make the effort to write on his own.

Click here for more Geography activities for kids.

Related Links

Reading and Writing Activities
Best Books for Kindergarten
Homemade Fun

The post Amusement Park Map Activity appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

My initial reaction was to point this mom toward several existing, free versions of landform cards. Land and water forms (like island, lake, peninsula, gulf, isthmus, archipelago, etc.) are a common topic of study in Montessori schools. 3-part nomenclature style land and water form cards are the typical Montessori way to learn these terms. However, just because a child understands what a strait looks like in cartoon form, does not necessarily mean that they will understand what these terms look like in real life.

By making cards that show real-life examples (such as the Bering Strait or Strait of Gibraltar) in addition to the definition card, children not only get an extra chance to learn what these terms mean, but they might pick up a little geography as well. Since many of these locations are historically important, I’m hoping that by helping kids become familiar with them, future learning might be more memorable since they will have a point of reference.

When my son was in a Montessori preschool last year, I was mildly embarrassed one day when his teacher informed me that my 5 year old did not know what an island was. Apparently in all his years of life, it had just never come up. Thankfully, his school took care of this gap in his knowledge. The way they taught about terms like lake and island with the younger kids was by making play dough recreations of these land and water forms. This seemed like such a good idea, we used our homemade play dough to make each of the 10 terms featured in this set of cards.

Then I had my son match up just the standard cartoon definition cards using the control cards for reference.

However, as expected, he still had trouble keeping all the terms straight. The next day we went to our homemade wall map and placed a few of the picture cards on the appropriate continents on our map. This gave us a chance to review the different continents and talk about what each of the picture cards depicted. We didn’t do all 20 picture cards at once. Instead, for the first day we did island, lake, strait, and isthmus. I would show my son one of the picture cards and have him guess which of those 4 terms it was showing. He loved this game. He and his 3 year old sister also loved taping the pictures to the map where they belonged. Neither of my kids know all 10 terms yet, but they’re well on their way and they had fun learning, which is what is most important to me.

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary
Time Required: ~45 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: free printable, about $3 to laminate (could save money by not laminating or by using contact paper instead)

Materials:

• paper (for printing Land and Water Form cards and the corresponding control cards)
• 16 thermal laminating pouches

Supplies & Tools:

• laminator (affiliate link)
• paper cutter or scissors

Instructions:

1. Print out the Land and Water Form cards and the control cards. (Note: You only need to print the first 8 pages of each document as the last few pages just include legal information about sharing and image sources.)
2. Laminate the cards. (Optional, but this will help them last long enough for repeated use which is important to me since I have 3 kids who will all eventually use these cards.)
3. Cut out the cards.

I definitely recommend providing some hands-on experience making these landforms. To do this, use your homemade play dough recipe of choice or buy some blue and green Play-Doh.

If you’d like to do the map activity, feel free to use any large world map or download my free printable template for a homemade learning world map.

Click here for more Geography activities for kids.

Related Links

Best Books for Kindergarten
Geography Activities
Learning Activities for Kids

The post Land and Water Form Cards appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Since learning about the Charlotte Mason book of centuries, I’ve seen blank timelines sold or as part of homeschooling programs. They seem like such a great idea. However, I had small issues with everything I found available. For example, in the Book of Centuries, the pages are vertical and frequently the books are bound (like a composition book where each line represents a 5 year period). I didn’t like this for 2 reasons. First, I didn’t want there to be lined divisions, because so many of the dates in ancient history are approximate. I didn’t like the idea of putting the information on an arbitrary line when the event might only be known within 100 years or so. Second, the problem with using a bound book (which was also an issue in other online world history timelines I found) is that there is no way to lay it all out and look at it at once. The sheets being vertical also is a problem if you wanted the sheets to make one large, consecutive line on the wall.

I liked the idea of having a timeline that could be viewed all at once. Granted, this free printable would be over 30 yards if you were to lay it out and no one I know has that much space available, but by using loose-leaf paper, we can hang up sections at a time as we’re learning about them.

Another feature which I thought might be useful is to divide up the timeline by continent. How often do we learn about something and have no idea what’s happening on the other side of the planet at the same time? Was the peak of the ancient Mayan civilization before or after the construction of the Great Wall of China? I honestly don’t know, but using this timeline with little world maps denoting a section for each continent, it will be easy to go back and find out.

Now, here’s my confession. I hated history growing up. I hated all the dates and names and events we needed to memorize. I hated my textbooks and pop quizzes and exams. I hated having to take notes for so long that my hand would cramp (and I actually like taking notes). I was a good student, but of all my subjects, history was always my least favorite. As a result, I remember effectively none of the years and years of history I’ve studied, which is just embarrassing.

However, now that I’m a grown-up and no one is testing me or making me take notes, I’m finally learning to enjoy history. If I could go back and do it all over again, this blank timeline is the sort of tool I would want to put it all into context and make connections that would allow the knowledge to last in my consciousness, rather than evaporate away into nothingness as soon as humanly possible.

My kids are still too young to actually make use of this free printable timeline. Rather, this timeline is for me. I have a few years before I’ll give my oldest son his own copy to fill out over the course of his childhood. In the meantime, I’m planning to catch up. As I read to them, I’ll learn for me. If all goes according to plan, I’ll use this timeline over the next several years, retain the key points I want to remember, and my kids will never know what an idiot I currently am when it comes to world history.

If you would like your own copy, I’m including two links below. This 121 page file is large, so I recommend right-clicking and selecting “save target as” (or whatever the appropriate counterpart is on a Mac) so that you can see the download progress. The first link is a more manageable, compressed 3 MB file. However, the quality is a bit low and that would bug me. Therefore, I’m also including the full 12 MB high resolution file. Take your pick.

Blank World History Timeline – lower resolution/smaller file
Blank World History Timeline – higher resolution/larger file

The above files above have very small margins. It works well on my printer, but one reader had trouble with text getting cut off. Just in case, here is a version with smaller margins.

I’m also planning to make printable supplements to go along with this timeline. For example, if you’re studying ancient Egypt, you’ll be able to print out a sheet of small images that could be cut and glued to the timeline for events or figures like the Pyramid of Giza or King Tut along with instructions specifying where I would place them on the timeline. This is a work in progress, but so far, these posts include some such timeline printables:

• 20 Historical Figures Worth Knowing
• Ancient Mesopotamian Historical Figure Cards
• Ancient Egyptian Historical Figure Cards
• Ancient Egyptian Monument Cards
• Ancient Greece Historical Figure Cards

To stay up-to-date with my ever-growing list of free printables, sign up for my newsletter.

Recommended Age Range: Elementary, Middle School, High School
Time Required: ~15 minutes (plus an extra 45 minutes if you decide to put each sheet in a page protector as I did)
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Free printable, less than $5 in used supplies (the cost of a binder plus paper/ink for 121 pages. I also decided to put each sheet in it’s own page protector which cost about $10 extra, but isn’t necessary by any means.)

Materials:

• Printed blank world history timeline (See link above. Make sure to right-click/save-as if you want to save it to your computer. If you just open it to print it, be patient as it may take a minute or two to load completely.)
• 3 Ring Binder (At least a 2″ binder if you use sheet protectors. 1″ is big enough if not.)
• Sheet protectors (optional, but helpful if you think you’ll ever want to hang parts of it on the wall.)

Supplies & Tools:

• 3 hole punch (optional, not needed if you use sheet protectors)

Instructions:
The quickest and easiest thing to do would be to print, hole punch, and stick the sheets in a binder. However, there are several other options. If you don’t plan to ever hang it on the wall or lay the sheets out flat in a long, continuous timeline, you could take the pages to an office supply store and have it bound. In either of these cases, I highly recommend printing it double-sided so that you will be able to look at an entire century all at once (each century is split onto 2 pages with Asia, Africa, and Europe on one sheet and North America, South America, Australia, and Antarctica on the other).

After much deliberation, I decided to print this document single sided, because I do think there will come a time when I’ll want to look at large sections of it at once. Rather than hole punch each sheet, which was my original plan, I decided to put them each in their own page protector. This will make it easier to hang on the wall, but given that I probably will never look at the entire timeline at once, it would also make sense to not put EVERY sheet in page protectors and instead just use page protectors for the necessary sheets when the time comes to hang them up.

My husband also had a non-intuitive, though great suggestion, which was to reverse every other page so that you could see a whole century with all 7 continents at one time as shown (similar to if it were printed double-sided, but actually printed single-sided with blank sheets between the sheets facing each other).

Whatever you decide, I hope this free blank world history timeline is helpful to you!

Click here for more History activities for kids.

Related Links

Learning Activities for Kids
Best Books for Kids
Geography Learning Activities

The post Blank World History Timeline appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

The main reason I made these cards, however, was to help my kids learn geography. A few weeks ago, we made a Homemade Learning World Map with repositionable continent labels. Now that my kindergartener knows his continents, these cards can be used to reinforce that knowledge since this free printable features four animals from each continent, each one selected because it is predominantly found only in that one continent. One way to use this printable would be to select 7 animals (one of the four from each continent) and have your child tape them to a laminated world map.

Children who are capable of reading (or are learning to read) can use these cards Montessori-style by simply matching the labels to the picture. (For younger kids, I would only give them a continent at a time to make the task more manageable.) Control cards are provided which show the picture and label together so that the child (or parent) can refer back to this set to find the correct pairing. To turn it into a game that you can play with your child, the split activity cards can be used as a memory style matching game. The control cards could also be used alone for sorting. Children can sort the animals by continent, type, size, or conservation status.

At the request of a reader, I now also have 3-part cards that split the information on the control cards into 1) picture, 2) name of animal, and 3) additional facts to make the activity more difficult for older children.

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle School, High School
Time Required: ~1 hour
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Less than $3 in used supplies (Bulk of the cost is for the thermal laminating pouches, which are about 20 cents per pouch. You’ll need 14 sheets if you want to make both the matching and control cards, though you could save money by not laminating them or using contact paper.)

Materials:

• paper (for printing World Zoology 2-Part Cards printable and the corresponding Control Cards. Note: For older elementary children, you may prefer to use the cards split 3 ways instead.)
• laminating pouches

Supplies & Tools:

• laminator (affiliate link)
• scissors or paper cutter (or both)

Instructions:

1. Print the World Zoology Cards and Control Cards printables. (Note: Only the first 7 pages of each document should be printed as the last 2 pages contain legal information about sharing and image sources.)
2. Laminate them.
3. Cut them out.

I recommend starting kids off with just one continent group at a time before attempting the full set.

Don’t forget, these cards can also be combined with my Homemade Learning World Map for a more hands-on activity.

If you enjoyed this printable, please consider signing up for my newsletter (which includes a freebie useful for kids in middle school or younger).

Related Links

Learning Activities for Kids
Best Books for Kids

The post World Zoology Cards appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

My 5 year old is currently very into maps which makes me happy seeing as how I have embarrassingly survived 3 and a half decades knowing little to no geography. He’s learning all the names of the continents and oceans in his Montessori school and is in love with the 90’s cartoon, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego (inexpensively available through this Amazon Affiliate link). I decided to support his love of geography at home through this homemade learning world map with labels that can be easily removed so he and his younger siblings can practice their reading skills and geography knowledge simultaneously.

To make this map, I traced a wall map we already had, but since not everyone may already own a wall map, I’ve included a document which can be printed out and taped together to use as a template for tracing a wall map onto larger paper. I make no promises about the precise accuracy of this tape-together-world-map. It is exactly what I traced from my map, but I left out minor details for simplicity. I figure when my kids start asking me things like, “Hey Mom, why aren’t there any Great Lakes on here?” or “Where’s Hawaii?” it will be time to invest in a better professionally printed and laminated wall map. For now, this inexpensive, homemade one is entirely sufficient.

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary
Time Required: ~2 hours (It took me a bit longer, but I had a 1 year old “helping.”)
Difficulty: Moderate (Hardest part is using the contact paper to “laminate” the large sheet of paper to make the labels easily removable. Could also just apply a strip of packing tape where you want the labels to be placed (or write the labels directly onto the map, which would be easiest, but remove the “interactive” feature.)
Cost: Less than $5 in used supplies

Materials:

• A large piece of paper such as butcher paper (my map is 32″ by 21″)
• Blue and green paint (I used powdered paint in blue, yellow, and white to mix the colors I wanted)
• Paint brushes
• Containers to hold paint (such as old food containers)
• Contact paper
• Paper (for printing a tage-together template map if needed, ocean/continent labels, and a control map for comparison)
• Tape (optional: only if you need to make the template map and for “playing” the game by taping the labels to the laminated map)

Supplies & Tools:

• Black marker
• Printer
• Scissors
• Laminator and laminating sheets for labels (optional: could use contact paper)
• Paper trimmer (optional: makes cutting out laminated labels easier)

Instructions:

1. Print out, cut out, and tape together the tape-together-template-world-map if necessary.



2. Trace the template map onto the large sheet of paper using a black marker.
3. Paint the continents green and the ocean blue, then let it dry.



4. Outline the continents in black again if desired.



5. Trim the borders of the paper if desired and “laminate” the map using contact paper. Note that this was the hardest part in my opinion. I used a large board game box to mark with a pencil where I wanted to trim off excess paper and to make sure I had right angles on my corners. Also, it can be difficult to peel off the backing to such a large sheet of contact paper, so it’s helpful to have a helper. For me it was my 5 year old. If the backing starts to tear as shown in the picture below, make sure to fix the problem right away by peeling up the stuck piece. Since my map was bigger than a single sheet of contact paper, I used two pieces on each the front and the back, making sure to overlap them slightly since the contact paper did not stick firmly to my powder paint.



6. Next print out and cut out the continent and ocean labels.



7. Laminate the labels using either a laminator or contact paper and cut them out.



8. Tape the map to the wall at child height.



9. Print out a control map so that the child can determine on their own where each label should go.
   
10. When your child wants to play the “game”, help them roll up tape to stick on the back of the labels to place them on the map (or use double-sided tape). For younger children who are not yet reading, tell them what the labels say.

Click here for more Geography activities for kids.

Related Links

Pre-K Learning
Montessori Learning
Geography

The post Homemade Learning World Map appeared first on ResearchParent.com.