It’s no secret that I love looking and learning about different cultures and countries with my children. Geography is probably my favorite subject area – and my children lovingly endure my enthusiasm. We like to experience as much of a culture as we can. I also like to include all of my children in our studies. That is not always easy with our younger learners. The “If You Were Me and Lived In. . .” books by Carole P. Roman have been great to do just that.
We use a Charlotte Mason approach to our learning – incorporating books and stories as much as possible. With the outline of the country and the country’s global location right in the beginning of the book, it’s easy to do geography from the couch. I love it when my children think we have just sat around reading stories all day and not done any “school work”. They don’t even realize that they are learning!
“If You Were Me and Lived in Mexico” was the first in this growing series. Written for your younger learners (pre-K to around age 8), the daily experiences of a child living in Mexico City, Mexico is a gentle introduction to other cultures. We learned things such as what parents are called and common names for boys and girls from Mexico. Just enough to be interesting, but not overwhelming.
“If You Were Me and Lived in France” introduced us to children’s lives in Paris, France or the “City of Light” as it is also known. We learned how Paris earned this nickname and that you would use euros to buy yummy things to eat. Of course we enjoyed an afternoon of appropriate sweet treats with tea (for educational purposes, of course!). We also read some of our own books that take place in France extending this short book into a mini-unit with my younger children. Although, once the older girls saw the Nutella come out, they decided I needed help “teaching”.
“If You Were Me and Lived in South Korea” carried us around the world – literally – to a less familiar country. We learned many things about this Asian culture as we took in the 26 colorful pages of the softcover book. I am so grateful that these books come with a pronunciation guide in the back. I can fake a French accent, but I would have completely butchered the Korean language. I wish it served as a glossary as well – my children were frequently asking “what is agi inhyeaong?” or others as they would read just that pronunciation page (why? I guess we’re weird that way – we enjoy reading dictionaries, too).
“If You Were Me and Lived in Norway” is the latest in this series. This follows the now familiar format of introducing us to the capital of the country, common names, etc. We read about a vacation to the Kirkenes Snowhotel. We all agreed it would make a fun trip. My younger ones were excited to know that the last part of the story talked about school. Being familiar with the flow from the other stories, they predicted this “ending”.
We have really enjoyed this series. These types of books are ones I treasure – I love learning about people in other parts of the world. These will be fun to incorporate in our geography studies for years to come. I hope this is a long lived series. While these books are not the “living books” we often use, they are an enjoyable way to introduce your children to various cultures. I was excited to see my older children getting as much from them as my younger ones. The older girls were talking about the similarities in the languages and celebrations — both within the other books of the series and other cultures they have studied.
As I was finishing up this post this morning, I saw an even newer addition to this series at an online bookseller’s site — Kenya! This is already added to my wish list. Exact prices varies from retailer to retailer, but each book is in the $8 – 9 range. Be sure to visit the author’s website, Carole P. Roman and Facebook page.
