For the past several years, I've noticed that my students truly lack a sense of geography. They have a hard time differentiating between cities, states, countries, and continents. They have no idea if they live closer to Canada or China! This summer, I ran into a friend from high school and found out that she teaches in China. She asked for my school address and started sending my students postcards about her experiences there! Then, we mysteriously started receiving other postcards from all over the world! It turns out that Hana had sent our school address to her friends and family who have pretty much adopted our classroom. Almost every week, we receive a postcard from somewhere in the world. After we read it, we post it on our map. We also find the locations of events (real or imaginary) as we read and we mark those on our map too. This simple 5 minute weekly activity is helping my students expand their worldview beyond their own neighborhood. We feel like we're taking a trip around the world!
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