Flags of the world lesson

Today, a simple folding activity plan turned into a huge geography, matching, and japanese lesson all in one! I never thought of teaching my kids about the flags of the world, until two years ago, when we were driving and my son shouted out, "there's the flag of Italy". And thereafter, proceeded to recognize, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, Japan, and AMerica.

In the Montessori classroom, the child is given a flag to draw and color, then write the name of the country it represents. Brilliant! My kids love it. Here you can see two of Addison's on our fridge, every week, he brings home at least three for us to display.


Today, I gave Nathaniel a book we had bought here in Japan. It is so brightly colored and adorned with our favorite japanese superhero, it was hard to resist, even though I was worried I would not be able to understand the directions. In the back, was a page to cut out and fold into a box, then several pages with cut outs of all the flags represented in the book (about 100 in all). All he was supposed to do was punch them out and fold the box. Instead, for the past hour, he has been punching them out, reading the japanese name of the country, then finding it in our english guide to make sure it's the right name and then putting them in the box. He keeps saying the names out loud and asking me where these countries are and what they are like. So, my simple folding activity has turned into japanese reading and world geography. Here are pictures below: