A Trip Around the World - Africa

We made it to Africa!

Country: Nigeria
Missionary: David Livingstone

Activity:  Fried Plantains, plastic bag soccer balls and games kids play.


This was one of my favorite class periods... they GOT it!  David Livingstone captured their interest and they had so much fun playing (without expensive toys).

We drew our hands on a piece paper - then I introduced them to the acronym THUMB - Tribal, Hindu, Unreligious, Muslim, and Buddhist.  Of course, I made it more memorable with color coding M'M's...

Fried plantains - I thought they were delicious.  Guess it's a "love or hate".  The class was about half and half.

We played several different games that didn't need a thing except our minds and bodies.  This was fun and eye opening to them! 

 After collecting HUNDREDS of plastic shopping bags, we made our own soccer balls.  Kids around the world play ball with these.

A Trip Around the World - Europe & The Americas

Our first continent - Europe.
Country: Germany
Missionary: George Mueller


We had a story time, and I shared about George Mueller's life with George Mueller: Faith to Feed Ten Thousand (Heroes for Young Readers) They all listened intently!  So inspiring!

We also ate gummy bears (made in Germany) and Pretzels.  But,  I forgot to take pictures!


So - Here's our next stop:
The Americas
Country: Canada
Missionary: Cameron Townsend


This was a fun week!  We explored Canada with edible Inukshuks and Curling.  Two things my south Texas students had NEVER heard about.


Thanks to Pinterest... I found a great activity that was also tasty.  Candy Inukshuks!  

I showed them several videos during class as well.  Back to Pinterest,  I found a great printable Curling game.  My students had a blast using dimes as stones.

This is so much fun to teach...

A Trip Around the World - Intro

I LOVE teaching Geography at our Coop!  And, I love Missions!  So, guess what I put together for this semester...a 10 week class called A Trip Around the World  for grades 5-8th.  (can I add...it filled almost immediately!)


Here's my general theme for each class period:

• Focus on each Continent with mapping skills and facts (homework)
• Introduce the class to a missionary each week
• Visit a different country (from that week's continent) each week in class - eat the food or do an activity
• Do some in-class activities to learn about geography.

Ongoing project for each student:

• Read a Christian Heroes Then & Now Missionary Biography - each student gets their very own!    
• Complete a written report on the book, and create a class presentation about the the country their missionary served in.  
• Bring a food to share for our "World Celebration" day

For our first class, I had everyone introduce themselves and tell where they most wanted to visit using my "Map Tangle" game board. (Map Tangle is like twister...but geography)

Then,  I introduced "The World" by having 10 of my students come up front.  This is what the spiritual state of the world looks like with 10 people and simple props:

• Tribal - zebra stick horse
• Buddhist - orange robe
• Muslim - head scarf
• Hindu - bindi dot & Indian wrap
• Christian (one who identifies as a Christian without knowing why) - Easter Basket
• Christian (one who identifies as a Christian without knowing why) -Santa Stocking
• Christian - Bible - this is one who has a living, personal relationship with God
• 3 Unreached - sunglasses - these have NEVER heard of Jesus!

This is quite a powerful visual of what the world looks like!

We spent our class time doing the good, old orange activity to discuss the differences between maps and globes and the effects of distortions on the maps.

To finish class, we had a class game of Map Tangle to see what we knew...

I love this class!