Multicultural activities for world social studies lesson plans with free printables

 

Hello friends of the Omschool! Teacher Omi (grama) has been having big fun creating a welcome montage in many  languages on her front door. And it got me thinking that these would make excellent multilingual activities and interactive bulletin board displays for social studies lesson plans. So here are cross-curricular multicultural lesson plan ideas to build global understanding of different languages and cultures. I've included free printable around the world, world flags, language and alphabet charts as well. This is part one of a series of global lesson plans beginning with greetings and flags. 

Welcome Wall: Purchase magnetic letters in English, Russian, Hebrew and Greek alphabets and any other alphabet you wish. Or use free printable alphabet charts. Here a free printable Greek alphabet from It's a Greek Life. Ben Crowder offers free printable Russian (Cyrillic) alphabets, plus printable language activities for Thai, Coptic (Greek alphabet of Copts in last-stage ancient Egypt), Ugaritic (ancient Phoenician cuniform) , Greek, Hebrew and Ogham (ancient British/Irish) alphabets. Here are free printable Chinese alphabet lesson plans. Use letters to write greetings in different languages. If using magnetic letters in classrooms, arrange these on a white board or metal door or window frame. Or print cards to affix to any window or wall.

 You might say "hello", "welcome" or any greeting native to the country. Mine says: 

Konnichiwa-Good Day (Japan)

czesc- Hi (Polish)

liefdt-Love (Dutch, didn't have enough letters to do Welkom) 

Добро пожаловать (Dobro pozhalovat) Welcome (Russian) Other former USSR nations use variations of this.

Wilkommen- welcome (German)

Shalom- Hebrew (Jewish Israel)

Ola-Hello (Spanish)

Cead mile failte-a thousand welcomes (Irish)

Pax-peace (Latin)

Howdy-(American slang)

Jambo-Hello (Swahili)

Bonjour-Good Day (French, Belgian)

Xush Kelibsiz-welcome (Uzbekistan)

Kalimera-Good Morning (Greek)

Assalamu alaikum or Inshallah- peace be unto you or if Allah wills (Muslim greeting used in many areas in the middle east) 

Interactive bulletin board or white board lesson plans. Create a hands-on bulletin board/white board activities by placing a large world map in the middle. Write greetings from list above on individual index cards and place in an envelope half attached to bulletin board. Then attach lengths of yarn to stickers affixed to countries on the map, from the list. Attach the other end to empty zippered bags that you've attached around the map. The student selects the greeting an places it in the corresponding bag. For the white board variation, use magnetic letters to spell the greetings and match them to the country. 

Flags around the world: Print these free printable world flags to match each one to the country or greeting on your welcome wall. Make a bingo game out of it. Or get a world map puzzle with each country being a different piece. Match flags and countries. 

World Map puzzle. You can turn any map into a puzzle by cutting out the different countries, states, provinces or oblasts (regions or Russia) or federal subjects (like states, in Russia--there are 85!). Have students memorize countries by their shape. They can then reassemble them. Or you can provide blank maps for students to color and label by country. They can then create map keys to indicate colors represent which region, country or state. Good luck with Russia!  

Hello and Goodbye. Teach students pronunciations for basic greetings, salutations and farewells in various world languages. Have them role play the greetings and responses to each other .

Make sure students know this is only a sampling and you've just taught the dominant language. Very few countries are like the USA, speaking one main language. Many countries are made up of people from various groups who speak different regional and cultural dialects or completely different languages. 

How many countries you cover will depend on age of students. Don't worry about getting every one. You'll only kill the joy of the lesson. This is about helping children learn about different countries and how they speak. It's not meant to be exhaustive, just fun and horizon-widening.  

Best I Can Read! early reader books, authors and illustrators from my childhood

Hello my friends of the Omschool! I have good news! Remember my post about how to find kids books you had loved and lost? I told you about a book I'd been hunting for, for probably 56  years. All I could recall was that a boy wanted to get his mother green lipstick for her birthday. Well I unearthed it along with another book my best friend Heather had that I had loved. I couldn't recall the title just the beautiful medieval pictures. That one is called Shadow Castle and the other is The Happy Birthday Present. 

Now, something especially wonderful about The Happy Birthday Present is that it is one of the earliest offerings from the I Can Read! Book Club which is probably the oldest book club for kids. It began with Little Bear (Else Holmelund Minarik) which featured early illustrations by Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are). 

I wasn't in the book club but you often found the books at doctor's office waiting rooms, along with Uncle Arthur which I'll write about later. Anyway, I must have been about 4 when I read the first one, The Fire Cat. And I was so proud because I read it myself. Here are my favorite books and authors from the I Can Read! series. 

The Fire Cat (Esther Averill, 1960) I just learned that this is part of a Cat Club series I'm going to explore. 

The Happy Birthday Present (Joan Heilbroner, 1962) I'm really taken with Mary Chalmers illustrations which left an indelible image in memory, particularly Davy's green lollipop. 

Danny and the Dinosaur (Syd Hoff, 1958) Actually I liked all of Syd Hoff's I Can Read! books. You might mistake his work for H.A. Rey of Curious George fame. 

Frog and Toad series (Arnold Lobel) Lobel won the Caldicott Medal several times as well as a Newbery Medal, the highest honors in children's literature. His other works are Fables, Mouse Soup and Owl at Home. I still recall my anti-book son Jakob being lured into reading and loving it with books like Owl at Home. "Tear Water Tea" being his most favorite (mine too!)! 

Hurry, Hurry Edith Thatcher Hurd and her illustrator husband Clement Hurd (and then their son Thatcher Hurd) gave us some of the best in children's literature. You'll know Clement Hurd for his illustrations of "Goodnight Moon" (Margaret Wise Brown) She studied at the prestigious and very lateral thinking school called Bank Street College of Education (where I had aspired to go in the early 1980s, but let fear of failure stop me). Many of Edith's books are of ships, the ocean and creatures that live there and that resonates too. 

Emmett's Pig (Mary Stolz, a favorite author who's book The Noonday Friends is one of my top picks for unconventional and relatable girl sheros. I will be hunting this up for my grandsonny-son Emmett. 

And last but by no means least is the Mrs. Malaprop of the housekeeping domain, the one and only Amelia Bedelia. Peggy Parish wrote the first and there have been many more, thankfully! 

I hope you'll find as much joy in these delightful stories as I have! 

Earth Month STEM lesson plans using recycled egg cartons activities with printables

Greetings from the Omschool! Teacher Omi is loving the longer and warmer days of Spring. And right around the corner, is Earth Day, part of Earth Month in April. There are so many ecological ways to celebrate the coming spring and the new life of Easter. One of my favorites is to practice reducing, reusing and recycling. 

As a teacher and homeschool parent (now grandparent) I try to model good Earth Month habits all year long by recycling materials, reusing them as classroom materials and reducing landfill waste. Here are STEM and science experiments and science crafts made from recycled egg cartons. Repurpose recycled egg cartons into homemade science crafts and hands-on science games to save money and the environment. I've included links for free downlands and printable science lesson plans too. Print on recycled paper for the win! 

And you know how I work: lesson plans are written for all ages (Yes, my newest little grands, Flora and Max, you too! can't leave our precious babies and toddlers out!) These can be used in preschool, elementary and multiage classrooms and in a home school) I'll label the activities for babies and toddlers (MF Max and Flora!) 

Attribute sorting science games. Sensory exploration is the core of science. Students can practice exploration in hands-on science games. To play, pass out clean, recycled egg cartons with each section labeled with words or pictures of attributes. Attributes will depend on materials being sorted and science subjects being studied. Items may be sorted by color, shape, size, living/non-living, wood/metal/plastic, anything you want. (MF give them plastic eggs to sort and just touch and feel)

You can play this as a scavenger hunt in which students search for objects to fit each attribute category. Labeling and sorting materials into recycled egg cartons builds science vocabulary, adjective usage and descriptive powers. It has tie-ins to math, language, writing, even social studies. (MF activities: have older kids make a sensory activity for littles by creating homemade windchimes from trash. Baby will love laying and his back and listening to the pretty sounds. Or give a toddler a pile of empty boxes to stack and knock over.

Egg carton Sensory Exploration sorting STEM games for Earth Month. Sort by

Taste: Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, metallic, tart 
Smell: spicy, bitter, sour, soapy, flowery, fruity, moldy
Touch: furry, fuzzy, smooth, cool, warm, hard, rough, scratchy, bumpy, squashy (malleable), sticky
Sound: squeak, ring, buzz, beep, pop, clang, snap, crackle, scrape, scratch

(MF: give the littles "chewable" sensory items to manipulate. Children learn first about their world by taste, smell and touch. They "braille" their world as Dr. Leo Buscaglia called it.  You can make a simple rattle with a plastic vitamin bottle with some jingle bells or blocks in it. Seal the lid super tight and let the little shake away!  They can find endless entertainment in crinkly paper, too! 

Ecology STEM experiments using recycled egg cartons.

Paper or Plastic? Use cardboard and Styrofoam recycled egg cartons to demonstrate what happens to both in a landfill. Place a piece from each carton in water and soil put them in the window. Note any changes to each over time. Use this to explore biodegradable materials and renewable resources for Earth Month. Discuss how pollution is an environmental hazard and harms plants and animals.

Geology STEM science experiments for Earth Month: Use recycled egg cartons to classify and identify rocks and minerals. Here are free printable rock identification worksheets and online rock identification guides to help.. Students should label the sections of recycled egg cartons and sort by:

hardness on the MOHs scale here are free downloadable MOHs scale printables to help. 
rock type (metamorphic, sedimentary and igneous)
mineral composition (calcite, silicate, carbonate, etc.)
uses (building, abrasion, decoration, chemistry, etc.)

(MF-find tactile stem rocks or fidget stones for them to explore. They will enjoy exploring the safe, non-toxic toy animals too). Or reuse a large clear plastic container from the recycle bin and place various items inside, like a terrarium, for baby to study. 

Biology science games. Label the sections of recycled egg carton science crafts with taxonomy classification guide from the kingdoms (plantae, animalia, etc). Here are some more free printable animal classification activities too. Students might sort by subcategories KPCOFGS (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species). Students cut pictures or make tiny cards with names of members of various groups. They sort pictures or words into categories. They can test each other in partners or in groups. Label the bottom of the egg carton with answers for self-checking. This can be adapted to any age or grade depending upon what you are studying. Animals classification is the perfect social studies-science cross-curricular activity! MF activities might include reading touch and feel or noisy books about animals. Max recommends the Jungly Tail Book with softie animals tails to explore. 

Systems science crafts. Most all science experiments are based on a system or cycle. Use recycled egg carton science crafts to make 3D flow charts, anchor charts, Venn diagrams or graphic organizers Places objects in each section to represent parts of the cycle and draw arrows to show how they interact. Demonstrate electrical current, the water cycle. food chains, human body systems, habitats, plant development and insect metamorphosis. Here are free printable charts and graphic organizers from enchanted learning. Graphic organizers make great cross-curricular lesson plans. 

Science Timelines. Use recycled egg cartons to demonstrate how things change and develop (or regress) over time. Make timelines of science inventions, transportation, etc. Use this with any area of science that you teach.

Respect Earth Month and make your STEM lesson plans POP! with hands-on science activities from your recycle bin. 

Free Printable Catholic Lenten coloring pages, Bible activities, Christian crafts

Hello my Omschool friends. Our family is Catholic and when I homeschooled our children, we followed the liturgical calendar and based our lesson plans around that. Our high holy day is Easter. For Catholic and Orthodox Christians, Easter is about more than just Easter baskets, bunnies and candy. Easter celebrates the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. During Lent, which is the 40-day period prior to Easter, Christians ready themselves for Jesus's coming with prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Lent begins in the Catholic liturgical calendar, on Ash Wednesday, following Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras (also called Shrove Tuesday) The date of Ash Wednesday changes each year as Easter is a "movable feast." In 2025, Ash Wednesday was Mar 5.  

Lent "follows" Jesus's during forty days of fasting in the desert when He was tempted by Satan. in preparation for His sacrifice on the cross. During Lent, we try to imitate Jesus. We follow the "Way of the Cross" or Stations of the Cross and pray the rosary. To help children learn about their Catholic Christian faith and observe Lent, here are free printable stations of the cross, rosary, saints and Easter bible story coloring pages. Use these for Lenten devotions.

The Catholic Kid has dozens of free printable Catholic coloring pages for Lent. There are free printable Catholic saints coloring pages too. 

Catholic Mom has an entire liturgical year of free downloadable and printable saints feast day coloring pages organized by month. This site also has 200+ free printable Sunday mass worksheets and activities, gospel Bible story coloring pages and devotional guides that follow the Catholic liturgical calendar. 

St. Anne's Helper has free printable Catholic activities and coloring pages for Lenten devotions. Catholic Icing is a homeschool mom blog with all kinds of printable Catholic activities, games, crafts, lesson plans and coloring pages. Clip Art Library has even more Catholic Bible printables and religious coloring pages. Edupics also has a big assortment of free printable Christian coloring pages. 

Between these sites, you'll free printable and downloadable Catholic Lenten coloring pages across all categories related to the faith, plus Christian games, activities, crafts and lesson plans. Some images are cartoons but others are beautifully drawn stained glass windows in various churches. These would make good adult coloring pages as well as challenging coloring pages for kids.  Categories include: 

free printable rosary coloring pages--Joyful Mysteries from the Bible story of Jesus's life: the annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth of Jesus, the Presentation and Finding the Child Jesus in the Temple--Sorrowful Mysteries from the Bible story of Jesus's life: the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging, the Crowning with Thorns, Carrying the Cross and the Crucifixion--Glorious Mysteries (heavenly events) in Jesus's life include the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the Assumption and the Crowning of Mary Queen of Heaven.--Luminous Mysteries: the Baptism of Jesus, the Wedding at Cana (Jesus's first public miracle), the Proclamation of the Kingdom and the Institution of the Holy Eucharist. These are Bible events from the life of Jesus. 

free printable Stations of the Cross coloring pages, one for each of the 15 stations

free printable Apostles Creed coloring pages

free saints coloring pages of St. Patrick, Mary Mother of God, St. Joan of Arc, St. Philomena, St. Tarcisius, St. Clare, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Joseph, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Valentine and other saints. There are several of Pope Francis. 

Use these free printable Catholic Easter coloring pages for Ash Wednesday, Lent devotions, Holy Week, Palm Sunday and the Easter Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and finally Easter Sunday. Make a Stations of the Cross coloring book for mass and to keep little ones quiet during devotions and to reflect during your stations prayers. These coloring pages make great lent devotional activities to prepare children for Easter.

Kids books and children's TV shows about broken bones, hospitals and childhood injuries

Hello my friends of the Omschool (omi-grama school). I'm worried today because my sweet 4 y/o grandson broke his leg on a trampoline a few days ago. Poor little guy is going to be in a wheelchair and cast for quite awhile.  And you know what this Omi does whenever anyone is in crisis. First I pray then I turn to bibliotherapy to find solace. So my first thought was hunt up books to help little man cope. Here are books about injured kids, hospital stays and all that goes into mending a broken leg.

Number one and two have got to be Curious George Takes a Job and Curious George Goes to the Hospital (H.A. and Margaret Rey) First, I like that in both cases, the injuries were preventable if George had listened and not been so snoopy. It normalizes what is very normal child behavior. A child's mishaps are often his own or someone else's "fault" in that they were playing too roughly, not following directions, etc. They (or the other person) may feel guilty and ashamed but can take comfort that they're not alone. Everyone makes mistakes and can learn from them. Kids will find it interesting to see what hospitals were like, with children's wards instead of private rooms, and how injuries were treated (broken legs in traction) years ago--in Omi's time! Hopefully there won't be an open ether bottle though! 

I Broke My Trunk (Mo Willems) Poor elephant has bent his proboscis and tells a silly story of how it happened. You'll love this one for the funny pictures alone!  

Sammy's Broken Leg (Oh No!) and the Amazing Cast that Healed It (Judith Wolf Mandell) This book will resonate with any child who's been in a cast all summer and has to deal with boredom, annoyance, being left out of activities and other frustrations. A little cheesy but I think kids will love it! 

Arthur's Knee isn't a book that I know of but a episode of the TV series Arthur. Our adventurous aardvark disobeys and goes to a junkyard. Predictably, he gets hurt and learns a lot about the body and how it heals itself. You can watch Arthur free with PBSKids subscription. Some episodes are available on Youtube and Amazon Prime. 

Caillou suffers his share of injuries and learns how to ask for help and how his body works. Here's another one about summer injuries. 

Daniel Feels Better In this episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Daniel hurts his ankle and learns about how doctors help children with injuries and how an x-ray works. 

Use these resources to help children understand why and how accidents happen and cheer them when they do.