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World Culture Activities for Kids

Colorful Buildings: Exploring Albania Through Art

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Our second stop in Project: Around the World was Albania. Albania is a small country located in Eastern Europe, just east of the heel of the boot that is Italy. (See it on a map here.) It was a little bit difficult to narrow down our inspiration. Albania is a beautiful country and I found many examples of beautiful buildings and traditional folk costumes. In the end, we stumbled across the town of Tirana. Tirana was completely downtrodden until mayor Edi Rama decided to brighten the spirits of the citizens with paint. Tirana is now completely transformed and is full of the most fun and beautiful brightly colored buildings. (You can see before and after examples at this link from TEDx.) For our art project inspired by Albania, we took a few simple supplies and made our own version of the colorful buildings of Tirana.
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Supplies Needed:
White paper
Pencil
Oil pastels (crayons or markers will also work)
Before designing our buildings, we folded each piece of paper in half. Make a sharp crease to help the buildings stand up.
Next, we used our pencils to add our doors and our windows. We outlined these with black oil pastel to help them stand out. Most of the buildings we was in the pictures were larger apartment buildings, so we tried duplicating this on our buildings.
After we were satisfied with our basic buildings, we started adding the bright colors. You can be inspired by the pictures of Tirana or dream up your own design. Both girls decided to add a little big of nature to their buildings with clouds, trees, and flowers. Once we finished, we refolded the paper and stood our buildings up. We had our own mini version of the colorful buildings in Tirana.
Our virtual trip to Albania was short, but fun. I won’t have a separate book post this time since I was unable to find any books about Albania. I did find one folk story in the the book, Magic Hoofbeats: Fantastic Horse Tales retold by Josepha Sherman. If you know of any books about Albania, please let me know in the comment section. Otherwise, online you can browse through Lonely Planet’s guide to Albania for pictures and information about places you can visit.
Thanks for traveling along on our virtual trip around the world!

 

Click the logo below to find all of our Project: Around the World posts.

 

 

Reading Around the World: Books About Afghanistan

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As part of Project Around the World, we’re trying to read books about each of the countries we virtually visit. I’m learning, though, that this may be easier said than done. Ideally, I’d love to find a combination of both fiction and nonfiction books for all ages for each country. Realistically, we’ll do the best we can and with some countries we may have to depend entirely on the Internet.
Here are my recommendations for books about Afghanistan.
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For Elementary-Aged Kids

Count Your Way Through Afghanistan by Jim Haskins & Kathleen Benson – This book will give your kids a good intro about Afghan culture and many of Afghanistan’s unique features. It was simple and kept both of my kid’s attention. We also loved learning to count to 10 in Pashto, one of the major languages of Afghanistan. This is a great introductory book.

 

I See the Sun in Afghanistan by Dodie King – I wish I would have know about this book when we did our project. It’s a perfect choice because it tells about the culture through the eyes of a child. I may now have read this book, but my friend Becky at Kid World Citizen recently reviewed it. Find her review here.

 

A True Book: Afghanistan by Ann Heinrichs – I love this series of books for the basic, age-appropriate introduction it gives about each country of the world. It may be a bit long for a younger child, but it’s easy to summarize and it has a lot of great photos.

Tweens and Teens

 

Extra Credit by Andrew Clements (appropriate for grades 3 through 7) – Sixth grader, Abby Carson, hates doing homework. But, when she finds out she’s in danger of being held back, she agrees to do an extra credit project, writing to a pen pal in another country. The letters flow back and forth between Abby and her pen pal, Sadeed and his sister Amira, from Afghanistan. This is a fantastic book that shows that despite cultural differences, we’re all the same. Read this one together if you’re looking for a book that will spark a lot of great conversations.

The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis (appropriate for grades 5 and up) – This book was good friends, really good. It’s the story of 11-year-old Parvana, who is living under the Taliban regime in Kabul, Afghanistan. After her father is arrested, Parvana is the only person in the family that is able to work and provide money. She’s only able to do this because she can disguise herself as a boy. The story is engaging and eye-opening. It’s a must read. Note: This is the first book in a trilogy. I have not yet read the other two, Parvana’s Journey and Mud City, but they are on my must-read list.

You can find our Afghanistan art project, watercolor tiles, here.

Click here to check out all of our Project Around the World posts.

Watercolor Tiles: Exploring Afghanistan Through Art

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Our first stop on our alphabetical tour of the world was Afghanistan. In a way, it was a complicated place to start, since Afghanistan has such a complicated history. And, how do you talk about things in an age-appropriate way without ignoring current events? In the end, I took my cues from the books we had and kept things simple. (I’ll have a separate post this week with my book recommendations.) Then, we dug down and concentrated on our focus. Our focus for this project is cultural and our focus is on the average citizen – those people that are just like you and me. We discovered the rich and beautiful cultural heritage in Afghanistan. We were in awe at all the beauty. For our project, we took our inspiration from the Blue Mosque in Mazar-e Sharif and created watercolor tiles inspired by its beautiful mosaic tiles.
*Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more details.
We started with a routine that we will do for every country. We got out the world atlas and located Afghanistan on a world map and looked at a map of Afghanistan to see its geographical make-up. We located mountains, rivers, deserts, and major cities. (We are using the Oxford Atlas of the World.) We read a few books and looked at other pictures I had found on line. When we were ready to start our project, we looked at several close-up pictures of the Blue Mosque. (The articles here and here were very helpful.)
Supplies Needed:
Watercolor paper
Ruler
Pencil
Blue watercolor (We used liquid watercolor for this project.)
To prep this project, cut a piece of watercolor paper into a square. Our squares were 8 inches by 8 inches. Then, using the ruler, divide the square into 4 quarters.
We used our pencils to draw designs on the tile. You can draw a design that crosses all four tiles or do individual designs in each tile. If you have a reluctant artist, they may want to try their hand at copying some of the designs in the pictures of the Blue Mosque. I encouraged my girls to come up with their own designs. Simple designs or complicated designs are both perfect for this project.
Once we were satisfied with our designs, we painted them with our watercolors. We used liquid watercolor because we love the vibrant look, but any watercolor you have on hand will work. After our paint was dry, we cut along the pencil lines to make 4 individual tiles.
You can display your tiles by attaching them to blue paper, or you can leave them cut apart and have simple tile puzzles. No matter how you display them, they are beautiful!
Thanks for coming along on our trip around the world through art.
If you want more information about Project Around the World, you can read my intro post here. You can follow all the posts here. Or, you can follow along on Instagram using the hashtag #projectaroundtheworld. I’d love to see your own projects with that hashtag!

 

 

 

Project: Around the World ~ Exploring the World Through Art

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I tend to get big ideas… very big ideas. It makes me nervous just putting this out there, because this is one of those ideas that seems impossible. And, maybe it is. Then again, maybe it’s not. But, nonetheless, here it is. We’re going to be working our way through all the countries of the world through books and art projects. Wow!

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more details.

I get very comfortable sitting in my corner of the world. Here in the US, it can be very hard to experience the world by travelling. Because of that, I’ve so often seen people block it out and dismiss it as unimportant. Even our schools often do a poor job educating our kids about the world. Luckily, I was always fascinated by world cultures. I was the kid who checked out all those countries of the world books at my local library. I loved them. And, that interest has never gone away.

I hope to encourage my girls to learn about world cultures too. We’ve tried foods, read books, and made crafts. We’ve done the things outlined in this post: 10 Ways to Explore the World Without Leaving Home. And so far so good. Their interest has been sparked. They know there is a whole big world outside of our small town and they want to learn about it.

 

I’ve been thinking about this idea for several months now. I’m a loyal reader of Global Table Adventures where they cooked their way through every country in the world alphabetically. It is such an amazing adventure and I’m sure we’ll be cooking up some of their recipes to supplement our own personal adventure. As much as I love and admire this concept, I wanted to do something different, something that was more “us”.

I’ll be borrowing the alphabetical concept, but instead of food, we’ll be making art. I want to do at least one art project for each country and I’ll share them here at Creative Family Fun. The projects will be geared towards elementary-aged kids, since that is the age my girls are now. Sometimes we’ll take our inspiration from folk art and sometimes from historical places. Other times, we’ll be inspired by unique architecture or a famous sculpture. No matter what, it will be something that connects us to that part of the world.

I also plan on sharing book recommendations for most, but not all, of the countries. I already know that there will be some countries that we won’t be able to find books about, though goodness knows I’ve tried. (Have you ever tried looking for a book about Andorra?) And for others, there will be many books to choose from. I’ll be sharing books for all ages, even adults, since I plan on stretching my own comfort zone in my book choices. Our cornerstone book for the project is our Oxford Atlas of the World, which is an amazing resource.

 

When I asked the girls if they were interested in this project, they got so excited. I was so happy to see their enthusiasm and hope it sticks around. We don’t have a set timeline as I have no desire to make this project stressful. What I do hope by doing this is to mold a couple of global citizens, help them discover the amazing diversity of the world, and to increase my own knowledge of the world. I also hope to inspire you and your kids to explore the world through art & books.

In addition to sharing here on the blog, I’ll also be sharing on Instagram with the hashtag #projectaroundtheworld. You can follow my account here. Whenever you want to join in, feel free to share your projects with #projectaroundtheworld. I’d love to see them.

Thank you for joining us on this jouney!

 

 

10 Ways to Play and Learn About Russia

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I think I learn just as much, if not more than the kids do when we study another country. Russia was no exception. I hope you’ve enjoyed our virtual journey.

If you’re looking for more resources to teach your kids a little about Russia, here is a list of 10 fun ways to learn about Russia

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Eat a little Russian food. Make piroshkis with Juggling With Kids.

Read a picture book about modern Russia with Afterschool for Smarty Pants.

Combine science and art to create a drawing of St. Basil’s cathedral with The Educators’ Spin On It.

Make an adorable fold-out Russian nesting doll card with Zakka Life.

Make and play a Russian nesting doll memory game with No Time for Flashcards.

Make Russian folk clothing artwork with Painted Paper.

Make a Russian icon with Domestic Goddesque.

Create simple Russian dolls with Kitchen Counter Chronicles.

Learn about Russia through books with one of the many books listed at The Educators’ Spin On It.

Learn about lines and patterns while creating Martyoshka dolls with this art project from Deep Space Sparkle.

If you’re looking for even more activities, you can see all of our Russia posts here.