One World, One Family

The theme for D's Kindergarten year will be "One World, One Family". After weeks of preparation I have finally completed the 'spine' for his curriculum which we will focus everything around. Using the book Discovering World Geography with Books Kids Love (Nancy A. Chicola and Eleanor B. English), I created 3-week mini units for each of the countries/realms we will be studying:

Week 1-3: East Asian Realm (China, Japan, Korea)
Week 4-6: Australian Realm (Australia)
Week 7-9: South Asian Realm (India, Pakistan, Nepal)
Week 10-12: Southeast Asian Realm (Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines)
Week 13-15: European Realm (France, Italy, England)
Week 16-18: Subsaharan African Realm (Nigeria, Tanzania, Namibia)
Week 19-21: Middle American Realm (Mexico, Puerto Rico)
Week 22-24: Pacific Realm (Hawaii)
Week 25-27: South American Realm (Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Peru)
Week 28-30: Russian Realm (Russian Core)
Week 31-33: North African/Southwest Asian Realm (Egypt, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, Mali)
Week 34-36: North American Realm (Canada, Alaska, America)
Summer Study: New Hampshire

Each week we'll have one book that we'll read, map, and do a craft or activity. In addition to this reading, I'll have a collection of related books to read aloud throughout the week to supplement the ideas, themes and geography of the main reading:

Week 1 (China):
Huan Ching and the Golden Fish (Michael Reeser)

Read story. Find China on the globe. Using a wall map, trace China onto a sheet of paper. Color it in and print the name of the country. Activity: Using poster board, colorful tissue paper and ribbons, make a 'Flying Fish' as shown in Discovering World Geography with Books Kids Love.

Supplemental Readings :
Ming Lo Moves the Mountain (Arnold Lobel); Count Your Way Through China (James Haskins and Dennis Hockerman); The Five Chinese Brothers (Claire Huchet Bishop and Kurt Wiese); Tikki Tikki Tembo (Arlene Mosel and Blair Lent); Lon Po Po (Ed Young); The Story About Ping (Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese); Liang and His Magic Brush (Xing Han)

In addition, I aligned our science studies (which also have units scheduled in 3-week blocks) with the geography blocks to the best of my ability so that our science readings and experiments will fit into the social studies themes we are working on at any given time. It's not a perfect combination, but in general it does match up and it'll give us a focus as opposed to feeling scattered. I'm trying to avoid the "Let's do reading, ok now let's do science, ok now social studies" and am striving to make it as cohesive as possible.