Category: Where We Are in Place and Time

Sense of Place: Geography #3: Travel Guides and Panorama Pops

Lesson Overview:

In this lesson, we move away from atlases and places on the map and focus on creating projects that promote an understanding of special locations.  Using travel guides, country books, and city “Panorama Pops”, students work together to create an accordion-style book that highlights features of a particular region.  This is a creative lesson and will be followed by a travel writing lesson next week.  In the first two lessons of this unit, the children saw images from all around the world.  Now it is time to create something beautiful to showcase their new understandings.

Lesson Plan:

Suggested Grades:

4 and above

Objective:

Working in small groups, students will create an accordion-style book to highlight their understanding of special places in a country or city.  (AASL 2.16:  “Use the writing process, media and visual literacy, and technology skills to create products that express new understandings.”)

Suggested Time:

50-55 minutes

Success Criteria:

Students will work in small groups to create accordion-style books highlighting their understanding of a country or city.

Lesson Outline:

1. Introduction:

Remind the students that in the last two lessons they reviewed atlas skills and then practiced finding landmarks in a world atlas.  Today, explain that they will get to use their creative energy to showcase some of the amazing places they have learned about.

Show the collected travel guides and Ms. McMenemy’s “Panorama Pops” books.  Ask what it is about these books that might make you want to visit those places.  Specifically, ask students what the travel guides and “Panorama Pops” books highlight.   Some ideas might include:

  • Sights and attractions
  • Famous architecture including bridges, fountains, skyscrapers, churches, or monuments
  • Shopping venues
  • Restaurants
  • Hotels
  • Parks
  • Entertainment or leisure venues

2. Main:

Explain that today the students will be working in small groups to create an accordion-style book like Ms. McMenemy’s “Panorama Pops” books.  They will use the blank sheets of paper and collage technique.  Once completed, the individual pieces will be assembled into accordion-style books using duct tape. (See attached photos of completed project.)

Show the children the lesson outline.  Use a timer or hourglass to make sure that you stay on target and can finish in one period.

  • With your group, using the available information resources, choose a country or city to highlight (two minutes).  Example: Dubai, UAE.
  • With your group, decide which student will represent which item/building/feature. Burj Khalifa, the beaches, Burj al Arab, Miracle Gardens, Legoland, etc. (3 minutes)
  • Use the white paper, collage materials, and markers to create one piece that highlights that particular feature.  Example:  One child creates a collage image to represent Dubai’s beaches.  (20 minutes)
  • Glue the collage pieces to the cardboard pieces.  (3 minutes)
  • Using duct tape, tape the cardboard pieces together “accordion style.” (7 minutes)

3. Conclusion:

There won’t be much time left over, but encourage the children to take a look at the other group’s projects.  Take photographs as the children work and certainly take photos of the finished products before they leave the library!  Share on the class Weebly or in a library display.

Resources:
  1. A couple of Sarah McMenemy’s “Panorama Pops” City Guides. Either New York, Paris, Venice, Washington D.C., Berlin, or London.  These are accordion-style, pop-out books that will give the children an idea of what is possible.
  2. A collection of travel guide books or country books, whichever you can easily pull from your collection.
  3. Duct tape or packing tape.
  4. Pieces of thin cardboard a bit larger than the size of paper you’d like your students to use.  I typically use the sides of copy paper boxes.
  5. Blank paper
  6. Colored paper scraps for collage.
  7. Markers, crayons, pencils
  8. Rulers
  9. Miscellaneous crafting objects like buttons, sequins, cotton balls, sandpaper scraps, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, Q-tips, feathers, etc., for use in the collage pieces.
Notes:

At the International School of Stuttgart, we were privileged to host Ms. Sarah McMenemy as our visiting author one year for our Book Week celebrations.  Sarah was a lovely guest and conducted art workshops all week long with our students.  Using torn paper, markers, and quite a bit of imagination, Sarah guided our students through the creation of breathtaking pieces.  I highly recommend her work, not only the “Panorama Pops” series, but also each of the picture books she has illustrated.  They are exquisitely done and tie to many of the most popular PYP units.  If you’d like to visit Sarah’s web site, you can do that here:  http://www.sarahmcmenemy.com/.  Sarah made the accordion-style books with our Grade 5 classes, and it was that week with her that inspired me to incorporate the project into other units of inquiry.  Thank you, Sarah, and thank you to Mr. Whitaker, aka Dangerboy, and the entire ISS Grade 5 team!

If you don’t think that your kids will cooperate well, if you are pressed for time, or if you would simply rather they work independently, ask the kids to work independently and create a piece to represent one landmark or natural feature from their unit of study – perhaps one landmark from the city or country where your school is located.  Then, once everyone has created one piece, you can put them all together to make a class book.  Either way will work.  The important thing is to let the kids express their understanding by creating a piece that is used in a book reminiscent of Ms. McMenemy’s pop-up city books.

Recommended books for this lesson: 

  1. Any of Sarah McMenemy’s “Panorama Pops” books, including Berlin, New York, Paris, Venice, Washington D.C., or London.
  2. A collection of travel guides from your library collection or public library. They are usually available in these series:  Let’s Go, Lonely Planet, Insight Guides, Rough Guides, DK Eyewitness Travel, DK Top 10, Marco Polo, Rick Steves, and Fodor’s.
Key Terms:

Landmarks, Geography, Maps, Pop-Ups, Architecture, Sight-Seeing

My Favorite Place

Our Favorite Places

Completed Accordion Book

Sense of Place: Geography #2: It’s a Beautiful World

Lesson Overview:

This lesson is actually an activity that builds on last week’s work with atlases.  It is designed to give students a sense of wonder about the incredible diversity and beauty found on Earth.  You’ll need one atlas for every two students and one copy of Lonely Planet’s Beautiful World.  Take the children on a round-the-world adventure using their new atlas skills!

Lesson Plan:

Suggested Grades:

4 and above

Objective:

To use atlases to locate famous geographical landmarks.  (AASL 4.1.4, “Seek information for personal learning in a variety of formats and genres.”)

Suggested Time:

40-45 minutes

Success Criteria:

Students will participate in the “It’s a Beautiful World Game.”

Lesson Outline:

1. Introduction:

Remind the children that last week they learned how to use the National Geographic Kids World Atlas.  Ask what they remember from that lesson.  Possible answers might include:  Color coding, organized by continents, lots of pictures, flags and games at the back.  Explain that today they’ll use the atlases to find geographic landmarks.  Most are natural, but a few may be manmade.

Show your library’s copy of Lonely Planet’s Beautiful World.   The kids will probably be excited over the size of the book and the quality of the illustrations.  Tell them that they’ll have a chance to look more carefully at the book at the end of the lesson.

2. Main:

Play the “It’s a Beautiful World” game by showing the illustrations on the page numbers listed below.  For each illustration, have the children try to figure out where the place is and then find that place in their atlases.  Once every team has made a guess, reveal the answer.  If you choose to, give the children instructions on self-scoring.

Places in Europe:

Place Number Page Number Place
1 18 Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia
2 26 Waterfall at Myrdalsjokull Glacier, Iceland
3 38 Steller’s sea eagles, Kamchatka, Russia
4 46 Lavender fields, France
5 47 Lake District, Cumbria, England
6 93 Manarola town in Cinque Terre, Liguria, Italy
7 132 Black Forest, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany
8 135 Aurora borealis, Kiurna, Sweden
9 180 Triglav National Park, Slovenia
10 186-187 Scotland
11 214 Millau viaduct, Midi-Pyrenees, France

Places Outside Europe:

Place Number Page Number Place
12 240 Bagan temples, Mandalay, Myanamar
13 219 Limestone pinnacles at Wulingyuan, Hunan, China
14 164-165 Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong
15 143 Slot Canyon, Utah, USA
16 117 Churchill, Canada
17 115 Lantern Festival, Chiang Mai, Thailand
18 112 Sardine run, Eastern Cape, South Africa
19 110 Holi festival, India
20 86 King penguins, Antarctica
21 61 Angkor Wat, Cambodia
22 49 Humpback whales, Alaska, USA
23 41 Ubari Sand Sea, Libya
24 16 Blue Mountains Nationl Park, New South Wales, Australia
Resources:
  1. Lonely Planet’s Beautiful World, published by Lonely Planet in 2013.
  2. Atlases, one for every two students, preferably the National Geographic Kids World Atlas.
Notes:

If you’d like, you can turn this into a scored game.  I tend to avoid competitions and scoring, but in some schools the children are used to competitive, scored activities.  If you’d like to do this, let the kids tally one point if they guessed on the right two-page spread in the atlas.  The game is too difficult to ask for the correct country, but the correct region as shown on a two-page spread is reasonable.

In my library, I keep Lonely Planet’s Beautiful World in the reference section.  It can go home over the weekend with a parent, but is not part of weekly circulation.  Coffee table books like this one are so big and heavy that the kids drop them frequently.  And, every drop damages the binding.  So, coffee table books = reference books that need a bit of assistance when traveling.

I wrote this lesson while I was teaching at an international school in Germany.  It was intended for my 4th graders and their teachers (Shout Out to the amazing Mrs. Dektar and Mrs. Kumar!!) and so is Euro-centric.  If your school is somewhere else, choose locations that focus on the places closest to your school.  I like to take roughly half of the locations from the continent on which your kids go to school, and the second half from around the world.

Recommended books for this lesson: 

Lonely Planet’s Beautiful World, published by Lonely Planet in 2013.

Key Terms:

Landmarks, Atlases, Games, Geography, Maps

Ancient Civilizations, Societies Then and Now #5: Illuminated Letters

Lesson Overview:

In this lesson, students learn how to make illuminated letters just as scribes and artists did in ancient times.  Using handmade books from the last lesson, students will create an illuminated letter decorative cover and fill the book with unit vocabulary or a story based on their new understanding of ancient civilizations.

Lesson Plan:

Suggested Grades:

2-5

Objectives:
  1. To learn to make illuminated letters.
  2. To begin to fill the handmade books with unit words, each of which will begin with an illuminated letter. (Fill the book in whichever way makes most sense for your class.)
Suggested Time:

45-50 minutes

Success Criteria:

Each student will decorate their book cover with an illuminated letter.

Lesson Outline:

1. Introduction:

Remind the students about Mr. Gutenberg’s books.  Ask what the thin, gold material was called.  (Answer:  Gold Leaf.)  Remind the students that gold was used to decorate books to make them look beautiful!

Using Google Images, show the children a few illuminated letters.

Ask what the children notice about the letters.  They might come up with the ideas that the illuminated letters are:

  • A bright, gold color.
  • Larger than other letters on the same page.
  • Decorated

2. Main:

Explain to the kids that there are five steps in making an illuminated letter.  Have these steps written on a screen, board, or flipchart paper at the front of the class.

How to make an illuminated letter:

  1. Choose a letter.
  2. Write a block letter (practice first on a piece of scrap paper!).
  3. Sketch in a design, usually with a pattern or motif from nature.
  4. Add color.
  5. Add “illumination” – an outline, highlight, or bit of gold or silver to make the letter beautiful!

Keep these steps visible during the lesson.

Demonstrate how to make an illuminated letter by making a simple one on the board or screen at the front of the class.

Then, show this short video, “How to Draw Illuminated Letters,” by “Made by Marzipan.”  Cue the video so that the children do not have to watch the advertising at the beginning.  Stop the video after the kids get the idea of what to do.

Insist that children practice before working directly in their handmade books.  You don’t want a lot of erasing in the books.  The most difficult part for them seems to be getting the sizing of the letters to fit the book cover.

Give the children time to complete an illuminated letter cover on the handmade books. The letter should connect with the unit.  For example, the students could do:

A:  for Ancient or Aztec

C:  for Civilization

E:  for Egypt

R:  for Roman

C:  for Chinese

I:  for Indus River Valley or Inca

Some children want to use their first name initial, and that is fine as well.

No one will fill the entire book during this lesson, but they can work on their books when they have free time or during indoor recess.

3. Conclusion:

Ask the children to show one another their illuminated letters.  Share with elbow partners.

Emphasize that making illuminated letters wan an ancient technique that they now know how to do!  Encourage the children to finish their books and to keep them as some of the evidence of learning for this unit.

Resources:
  1. Handmade books from the last lesson
  2. Scrap paper for practicing
  3. Colored pencils, pens, and markers
  4. Rulers
  5. Device to show the video, “How to Make Illuminated Letters” by “Made by Marzipan”
  6. Access to the YouTube Video, “Made by Marzipan,”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMi5g3OPO-Q
  7. Handout copies, samples of block letters. (Attached)
  8. Handout copies, samples of illuminated letters. (Attached)
Notes:

Kids REALLY enjoy this activity.  Be prepared for a lot of questions, but let them use their own creativity.  I’ve had kids make lovely rock, wave, feather, and vine patterns.  Students are also good at geometric patterns.  If anyone gets stuck for ideas, just show a few illuminated letters from Google Images to jump-start their imagination.

Key Terms:

Bookmaking, Upcycling, Handmade Books, Crafts, Publishing, Weather

Block Letters

Illuminated Letters

Ancient Civilizations, Societies Then and Now #4: Gutenberg and Bookmaking

Lesson Overview:

In this lesson, students learn about Johannes Gutenberg and the first books printed with movable type. They also have the chance to make a book using upcycled or recycled materials. In the next lesson, they will learn the ancient technique of making illuminated letters and begin to fill their books with unit vocabulary.

Lesson Plan:

Objectives:

1. To understand that Johannes Gutenberg was the first person to make a book using movable type.
2. To learn to make a simple book using recycled materials (Can also be an Eco Week Project.)

Suggested Grades:

2-3

Suggested Time:

40-45 minutes

Success Criteria:

Each student will make a book from recycled materials.

Lesson Outline:

1. Introduction:

Ask students how many parts of a book they can name. They should be able to identify: front cover, back cover, spine, and pages. Point out the binding with thread or glue, and mention ink for words and images.

Introduce the idea that books have changed over time. Hundreds of years ago, books were all made by hand. In modern times, we have eBooks! Today we will make a book with our hands using recycled materials. Next week we will decorate the cover using an historical technique with illuminated letters.

2. Main:

Teach From the Good Mountain: How Gutenberg Changed the World, by James Rumford. The text will be quite difficult for second or third graders, so you will need to paraphrase and summarize key points. The way the book is written is essentially a guessing game. Simplify the language and let the children guess the major parts of a book including the paper, ink, glue, leather covers, movable type, and gold leaf. You may need to show pictures of gold leaf as many children have never seen or heard of it before. Sometimes I do not finish the book because it ends with the importance of movable type and, for this lesson, you’re really focusing on the idea of a handmade book.

After you finish teaching the text, explain to the children that they will have a chance to make their own books. They won’t be making paper, but they will be using scrap paper and materials on hand to make their own books. Next week they will work on filling the books with their own stories or information.

Demonstrate how to make a handmade book. Prepare by watching and using the technique in Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord’s video here:

Help the kids make the books. I usually use terminology like this:

  • “Fold each sheet of paper in half so that it is long and skinny, a ‘hot dog fold.'”
  • “Make sure that any marks on the scrap paper are on the inside of the fold.”
  • “Fold the long skinny pieces in half, ‘sandwich folds.'”
  • “‘Nest’ the folded pages inside each other. Be sure that all folded edges are UP and all loose edges are DOWN.”
  • “Match corners and then punch two holes in the left-hand side. The holes should be about 6 cm apart.”
  • “Push the rubber band through the holes and loop it around the stick/pencil/crayon on both ends to complete the binding.”

The rubber band is the hardest part for kids to manage on their own. It will take about one adult for every eight kids to ensure that the books are put together correctly.

Ask the children to write their name on the back of the book once the book itself is complete.

3. Conclusion:

Make sure that every child has a completed book and that the child’s name and class are on the back cover.

Resources:
  1. Two sheets of scrap paper per child. If the books need to be a bit longer, use three sheets of scrap paper per child.
  2. One stick, old pencil, or crayon approximately 8-10 cm in length per student (If you can’t find enough old pencils, you can use a craft stick).
  3. One rubber band per student.
  4. Hole punch.
Notes:

Kids REALLY enjoy this activity. Be prepared for them to want to make more than one book, or to make their books longer or larger. I usually let them make one to work on at school and one to take home for fun as long as the materials hold out.

Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord is an expert on bookmaking with children. She has published a book herself that contains bookmaking techniques from around the world. I have purchased her book and found it to be a valuable resource. If you would like to have a look at it, you can find it either on Amazon or Etsy.

recommended books for this lesson:
  1. From the Good Mountain: How Gutenberg Changed the World, by James Rumford
  2. Handmade Books for a Healthy Planet, by Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord
Key Terms:

Bookmaking, Upcycling, Handmade Books, Crafts, Publishing, Johannes Gutenberg, Gutenberg Press