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Hey guys, welcome to my channel
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We are just about to start week five of my father's world exploring countries and
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cultures, and we are traveling to Mexico. So I'm going to show you just a little bit about what is part of the curriculum
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for this week and what we're going to be doing. So if you're new here, my name is Sarah
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We are in our seventh year of homeschooling. I've got four kiddos. Like I mentioned, we're using my father's world exploring countries and cultures
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this year with my three oldest kids. And my youngest is doing my father's world voyage of discovery
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And if you're curious about what this curriculum looks like, this will be a great video for you to watch because I'm going to show you the instructor guide
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show you what activities are included, and you'll get a good picture of the
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daily flow, daily rhythm, and how it might work for you. All right. So as I mentioned, we are in our fifth week
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We're just starting the fifth week. And this is the week that we start traveling to different countries
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And our first week that we're going to be learning about Mexico. Now I tried to do a little bit of fun decor
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You guys, decorating is not my strength. I love to bake. I love to teach
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But if you came here looking for, you know, decorating ideas for getting
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everything set up for these countries, not going to be the best place
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But I did have a little table runner and just a couple of random decorations
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So I tried to make it look as festive as possible for right now
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Okay. So basically what the kids do first, they each have these
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little passports that they get. And then whenever we travel to a different place, they're going to
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have some money that they use. And we will exchange this and learn about the different currency from
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the different places that we go. And then they will get a sticker to put in their passport
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So the curriculum came with all these different stickers that we can use for
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each passport for the different countries that we're going to be visiting. The curriculum also came with just different paper money for the different currencies
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So I went ahead and I cut those out last week. So we've got some bills and we have some coins and they actually also give us, I
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have it hanging up over here, a currency kit where they kind of tell you what
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the rough exchange rate is. This is an exact for today. So you can use this
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I went and I looked it up. It's about 170 pesos for 10 US dollars right now
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So we're going to go with the exact amount. And so basically what happens or what you're supposed to do is the kids go
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through customs, they do their little passport, they exchange their money, and
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then we're off learning about the country. All right. And then this is something just something fun that I set up
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I figured it would be a good way for the kids to spend their money and just
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practice, um, practice using it. And I got this little box from Mexicrate.com and I honestly thought it was
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going to be a lot bigger, but there's, there's a few different things that you
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can buy from there. I just got a little candy box with some different candies in it
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And then I just made a little sheet to go on the top of here
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So when we open this up, they will have some of their money that they can spend. And hopefully they'll have fun with this and they'll enjoy it
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Who doesn't love candy, right? I will say that I feel like this week is going to slow down a lot
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As far as the amount of work, the first four weeks, we were doing a lot of map
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work, we were learning about continents. And then we spent two weeks learning about the United States and it felt
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really heavy with the workload. When I look through the teacher manual, it feels a little bit lighter
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So I'm going to go through and just show you what this is like. And then, um, you'll kind of get the idea for every country
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It's pretty similar. So you'll get to see, um, what we're going to be doing as we explore the
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different countries and cultures. Okay. So this is the teacher manual for week five in Mexico
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And we typically go in order. You don't have to, but typically we will start off with the Bible
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part, window on the world. And that is this book right here
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So we're going to be doing the pages on Mexico. So this just shares a little bit about Mexico in here
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It talks about, um, just the culture. It talks about religion a little bit, and it also gives some great
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ways that you can pray for Mexico. So we've enjoyed this book in the past
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We're going to enjoy going through it again. And it's a great introduction as you go into each of the countries
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So that is typically first. Um, and then, so I have these crossed off because we're actually doing a
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different language arts curriculum. We're not following this. So I X'd out some of that stuff
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Um, we will be doing some math drills. So that's there that doesn't have anything to do with the countries
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Uh, but when you get down to geography, so this is the passport activity
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We've got map activities. I'll show you guys those sheets in just a minute
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And then there is also a, um, kind of a research booklet, which I
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will show you that again as well. Um, book basket, they have this in here every day
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The back of the teacher's manual gives them suggestions for different books
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that you can check out for each country. And also kind of each ecosystem that you're learning about in science
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I have found that the books they suggested have been kind of
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hard to find in our library. So I did pick out a few and I actually have to go pick
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them up from the library today. But, um, just keep that in mind. If you're planning on using this, you, um, may be able to find some of them
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You might have to plan a little bit farther in advance if you want to stock up your book basket or be creative and find some different resources
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I know we're also going to utilize some YouTube videos and some things like that to help us learn more about each country that we visit
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And then we go into science. So again, they are going to be learning about different ecosystems
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It looks like we've got deserts this week coming up. And I think a lot of times they do try to pair, um, kind of the ecosystem
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with the different countries that you are learning about and they tie
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in some different Mexican music. We're skipping the art just because again, we use a different art
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curriculum and we can't do all the things. So that's there. And then at the very end, they have a read aloud
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We have been doing this. I typically do it at the end of the day after dinner
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So I'll show you that book. We've really been enjoying it. Now this curriculum is for, I think about third grade and up
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If you do have older students you're doing it with, they do have extra
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activities here for seventh and eighth grade supplement. So those are there as well
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And everything is really scripted out for you. So it'll tell you, you know, Monday there's what we're doing
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And it goes through each activity day by day. So you kind of know exactly what you have to do
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These are different science questions. Um, here's some supplement notes for older students and things like that
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So it's really well laid out. And for most of the countries you spend, I think about two weeks in each country
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And here's a little bit of a geography game we're going to play. It looks like a lot of fun
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So about two weeks learning about each country. All right. So that is the end of that first week
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And then the next week we will be Mexico one more time
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So let me show you some of the student pages so you can get a great idea of what the kids are going to be doing
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All right. So each of my kids, I have a binder for them and this right here, this is
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going to be the geography game that we're playing this week. They've got some cards
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I think for North America is going to be our focus. So those are all there
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I have a little zipper pouch in front. Their money is going to go here
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And also the pieces for the geography game. Once I get those all cut up, this will be an easy place to start storing some of that
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At the beginning, I have their memory verses. We are working on a memory verse from the book of Matthew each week
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So that's just what's in the front. And then I have this pocket right here where I keep all of their sheets for either
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that week. Right now I have the next two weeks in here since it's all for a specific country
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So we have a sheet. This one's going to go along with our science. We're going to be learning about deserts
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For every country, they have an information sheet that they're going to fill out
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So they see the flag and then we're going to be researching different information
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about each country. And they have books that come with the curriculum that you can use for this or you
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can do your research online. It's up to you. All right. And then here's another example of one of the activity pages that we're going to be doing
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Looks like we're going to be learning about some Spanish words. They do have activities in here or, you know, encouraging you to look up shows or
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listen to music in different languages. Every country also has a John 3.16 page where they have John 3.16 in Spanish
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And then where you get to color the flag and you just have a visual representation of
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where that country is. Okay. So those are the student sheets for the next two weeks that we're going to be using
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And then what I do, and just so you can see, I keep all of our student sheets in here
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week by week. So if you watch my video on organizing, you probably saw me get all of this set up
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But these are all in here. These extra sheets, I usually will fill them back up with the completed pages and then
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stick them where they belong in these tabs. So one of the other things that they're going to be doing is behind this world tab
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they have this sheet where they're going to be filling in and coloring the different
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countries as we go. So this week they'll color in and label Mexico
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And then every tab, you know, we've got North America, South America, Europe, Africa
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Asia, so all of the different continents in there. And as we get to studying different countries, they're going to go behind those
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different tabs. So we already have a few in here from North America that we did
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So there was our sheet from the United States. We were working on labeling the different states that are around us and other specific
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states that they had us do one of the days. There was our John 316 page for the United States
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My son, not a big color, so he chose to not color that
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And if you looked at my girls' pages, it would be quite different. And then this was an activity they had to do where they had to use four different colors
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and color each state, not letting any state next to each other have the same color
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So it was just a little critical thinking activity. So that is what is up ahead
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And again, it's pretty similar for each country. So I'm going to put these back in here
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See if I can do this one handed. All right. So that should give you an idea of what that curriculum is like
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Now, I also will show you in here just so you can see if you're not familiar yet, which
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countries we're actually going to cover. So in this curriculum, you'll see we did United States, Mexico, Canada is next
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Then we'll have Brazil, Norway, France, Germany, Kenya, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, India
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China, Japan, Russia, Australia and Antarctica. And that's it. OK, and then with science, again, these are the different ecosystems that we're going
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to be studying to go along with those countries. So if you were wondering, those are all the different places that we're going to be
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studying and visiting this year in Exploring Countries and Cultures. All right. So if you were curious, I hope that gives you a good idea about what is
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included in the curriculum. Again, I think it slows down a little bit this week and we really get to kind of dig
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into each country, do some fun activities. We are going to supplement with some different books, different movies
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Oh, and at the end of every week, they have this book right here, Come to the Table
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where they have different recipes that you can make for the different places
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So last week, ours didn't turn out very good, to be honest
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But we will look up some recipes from Mexico and we will work on making those together
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I don't know what page it's on, but they usually have... See if I can find it and show you
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OK, so to give you an idea, here's the page for Mexico. So they give a little bit of background
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They talk about the food, some different traditions, and then they have some recipes in
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here. So it's fun to kind of shop to make some traditional meals for each of the
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countries that we're going to be going to. So we look forward to that. I've got three kids and each of them are going to take turns helping me in the kitchen
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with these meals. And I realized I said I was going to show you this is their Exploring World Geography
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book. So this is kind of more of a research book where they have to kind of flip
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through, use the Internet to answer some different questions. There's some graph data type stuff in here, and it's pretty challenging, but it is
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good to teach them how to do these skills. We've been working in the North America section for the past couple of weeks, and
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we're going to continue that for a few more lessons. So I think that's a really great part of the curriculum
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And then also Kingdom Tales doesn't have anything to do with the countries, but a
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great book. We are really, really enjoying it so far. Again, I usually read it aloud after dinner
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It's a great way to kind of end the day, but we love this one. Thank you again for watching
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If you're new here, I would love to have you stick around. So make sure you hit that subscribe button, hit that like button so you don't miss out on
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future content. We'll see you next time
