I’m finally starting on this past year’s geography units. These are not necessarily in order. I’m beginning with our Iran unit, as requested by one of my readers.
Iran is a very fascinating country, full of beauty and rich in history. Here’s an overview of what we did, with links to more information and other ideas (including some we didn’t have time for).
Week 1
Located Iran on the globe, wall map, and atlas.
Discussed capital city and other major cities.
Listened to “Middle East Song” on Geography Songs.
Colored the flag (Kids of Courage) and listened to the national anthem (there is an older anthem and the new, official anthem).
Watched YouTube videos on Iran and Tehran:
The Beautiful City Tehran (this moves very quickly through lots of photos)
Just a Few Magnificent Tourist Attractions in Iran
The Highest Altitude Ski Resort
The Bolder Fresher Tour in Iran (Rick Steves)—This is an interesting video, but I prefer to skip the last few minutes of it.
Read from the book Geography From A to Z about plateau, mountain range, mountain, coast, basin, forest, jungle, desert, plains, river mouth, lakes, gulf, sea, strait
Labeled a map of Iran (map outline from Enchanted Learning)
Discussed government, religion, currency, climate, and food
Learned some of the language (Farsi or Persian) using some YouTube videos:
Jesus Walks on the Water (told in Farsi)
Week 2
Discussed Persian architecture, Biblical locations (such as Susa) & the story of Esther (discussed courage as it relates both to Esther’s story and also to Iranian Christians).
360 view of Sheikh Lotfallah Mosque (this is gorgeous!)
Discussed Persian history, artifacts, and Persepolis.
Kids Discover (Ancient Persia)
History for Kids (The Persians)
Images of Ancient Iran (website)
Animals: Persian leopard, Asiatic cheetah, Persian cat, and the caracal (also called Persian lynx)
Persian art, literature, philosophy, science, medicine, mathematics, astronomy
Discussed Persian rugs (another link HERE) and colored Persian rug pages (from Kids of Courage) Each of the kids chose a different picture to color:
Read story from Around the World in 80 Tales and “The Magic Horse” (a Persian folk tale)
Filled out a notebook page (from Homeschool Creations). Both kids’ pages are pictured below):
Other ideas we didn’t get to do:
Play backgammon
Play Learn Enjoy Interact Games–Persian alphabet (printable color pages)
Eat a meal on the floor; try pomegranate juice
Iranian (Persian) Food Recipes
Persian Cuisine (recipes)
Persian New Year traditions—some fun activities and information (our Iranian friends in England gave us this website and talked to us about the Persian new year).
Websites we used:
National Geographic Kids (includes a neat video)
Fact Monster (Kids from Iran)
Farsinet (Persian Rug History)
Kids of Courage (Bold Believers in Iran)—You can download this book for free. We used it extensively. It has lots of fun info on Iran but also focuses on Christianity in Iran. Our flag page and Persian rug pages came from this download.
More links:
Flag of Iran to color (Crayola)
More Coloring Pages (another flag to print)
DLTK (Queen Esther ideas)
That concludes my unit on Iran. Any other requests? You can choose from Canada, Haiti, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Czech Republic, Mongolia, Burma (Myanmar), South Korea, South Africa, or Antarctica. Those are the countries we studied this past school year.
I’m linking this post to “History and Geography” at All Things Beautiful.
