The List

Several people have asked about our list of countries, so I thought I'd go ahead and post it. I found a list of all the 'sovereign' countries in the world, pasted it into a Word document, and then started paring things down (there were nearly 200 to start with). This list reflects stuff that interests our family and I left a few countries on there for personal reasons that you may or may not want to keep or replace with others. Like there are a lot of Scandinavian ones because we have ancestors from there. Also, since the list was based on 'sovereign' nations, it left off Taiwan and just put Great Britain instead of separating out England, Scotland and Wales. I'm still not sure how we're going to handle that one when we get to it. Anyways, here's my list and you can customize it as you see fit.

As far as research goes, I've been able to find a lot at my local library. I'm blessed to live in a city with a library that has a large collection of children's materials (and I'm married to a librarian who gives me hints on finding things). I really like juvenile nonfiction because it makes things easy to read; there are often quite a few easy international cookbooks in the food section and basic introductions to countries in the geography section. If your catalog searching skills need some help, ask a librarian and they should be happy to help you. There are often good resources online, especially for recipes and other cultural information. With both books and online resources, don't forget to check both the date and the publisher to make sure the information is current and reliable. Another interesting source is the Friend magazine online. Unfortunately they don't publish pictures online, but for a number of years they've been publishing profiles of kids around the world that can be fun to read. Sometimes they also have international recipes too. You might be able to find back issues at your church library, so if you find a story online you can look for it in person so you can see the pictures. There are also quite a few good books out there that compare different countries in visual ways for kids (and adults); two interesting ones are Hungry Planet and Material World. If you don't have a large world map for your wall it's not to hard to find a good one that doesn't cost very much. Try checking your local teachers supply store or bookstore.

Today we talked about Afghanistan; I found some coloring pages of rugs and sheep online and we ate kebabs with naan. We also looked at some books we found online. The kids thought the kebabs were too 'spicy' but they loved the bread. The highlights for them from the books were finding out that Afghanistan is a mountainous desert like Utah (S-Boogie drew that connection herself), that they have outdoor markets, they have a lot of sheep, and they are Muslims who worship in mosques not churches. I'll try and write a post every few weeks with what we've been doing for the different countries. It's fun to have an audience to be accountable to.

Afghanistan
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Barbados
Bolivia
Brazil
Canada
China
Colombia
Cuba
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Ethiopia
Finland
France
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Guatemala
Haiti
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Kenya
Korea, South
Mexico
Mongolia
Morocco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Russia
Saudi Arabia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Thailand
Turkey
United Kingdom
Venezuela
Vietnam