Subjects
Grade
Brief Description
A popular picture book leads to lessons in multicultural awareness, graph-making, more.
Brief Description
Students
Keywords
percent, fraction, world, multicultural, statistics, census, population, million, billion, graph, bulletin board, David Smith, If the World Were a Village, map, world, society
Students
Lesson Plan
Do your students have any concept of the world and its population? The award-winning (IRA Children's Book Award, 2003; Smithsonian "Notable Book"; Children's Book Council "Children's Choice") book If the World Were a Village: A Book About the World's People, written by David J. Smith, will help students look at the larger world by putting it in an easy-to-understand perspective.
From the American Library Association publication "Booklist"...
(Grades 3-5, younger for reading aloud.)
"To make the idea of a world of 6.2 billion people more understandable, Smith suggests that children imagine the population of the world as a village of just 100 people. That's one person representing 62 million people in the real world. Surprising, even shocking statistics follow -- for example, many kids in the U. S. take computers for granted, but only seven people in the global village own one. Each double-page, picture-book spread relates a few consciousness-raising facts about such topics as nationalities, food, language, and religion. This highly informative book will get kids thinking and asking questions, and it can easily be incorporated into a middle-school social studies curriculum. The endnote suggests related activities for home and classroom."From the Publisher...
There are currently more than six billion people on the planet. This enormous number can be difficult to grasp, especially for a child. But what if we imagine the whole world as a village of just 100 people? In this village, 22 people speak a Chinese dialect; 20 earn less than a dollar a day; 32 are of Christian faith; 17 cannot read or write; and 39 are under 19 years old. In a time when parents and educators are looking to help children gain a better understanding of the world's peoples and their ways of life, If the World Were a Village offers a unique and objective resource. By exploring the lives of the 100 villagers, children will discover that life in other nations is often very different from their own. The shrunk-down statistics -- some surprising, some shocking -- and David Smith's tips on building "world-mindedness" will encourage readers to embrace the bigger picture and help them to establish their own place in the global village.
Share this excellent book by reading it aloud to students from grade K to 12. After reading it aloud, use some of the book's activities to extend your students' understanding. In addition, use the book to teach about
You can find additional information, resources, and activities on David Smith's Web page, If The World Were A Village -- A Book About the World's People.
Assessment
Create guidelines for creating a graph or illustration of one of the statistics from If the World Were a Global Village. Use your guidelines/rubric to assess students' projects.Lesson Plan Source
EducationWorld.com
Submitted By
Gary Hopkins
FINE ARTS: Visual Arts
GRADES K - 4
NA-VA.K-4.1 Understanding and Applying Media, Techniques, and Processes
NA-VA.K-4.3 Choosing and Evaluating A Range of Subject Matter, Symbols, and Ideas
NA-VA.K-4.4 Understanding the Visual Arts In Relation to History and Cultures
NA-VA.K-4.6 Making Connections Between Visual Arts and Other Disciplines
GRADES 5 - 8
NA-VA.5-8.1 Understanding and Applying Media, Techniques, and Processes
NA-VA.5-8.3 Choosing and Evaluating A Range of Subject Matter, Symbols, and Ideas
NA-VA.5-8.4 Understanding the Visual Arts In Relation to History and Cultures
NA-VA.5-8.6 Making Connections Between Visual Arts and
Other Disciplines
LANGUAGE ARTS: English
GRADES K - 12
NL-ENG.K-12.1 Reading for Perspective
NL-ENG.K-12.2 Reading for Understanding
NL-ENG.K-12.7 Evaluating Data
NL-ENG.K-12.9 Multicultural Understanding
NL-ENG.K-12.12 Applying Language Skills
MATHEMATICS: Number and Operations
GRADES Pre-K - 2
NM-NUM.PK-2.1 Understand Numbers, Ways of Representing Numbers, Relationships Among Numbers, and Number Systems
GRADES 3 - 5
NM-NUM.3-5.1 Understand Numbers, Ways of Representing Numbers, Relationships Among Numbers, and Number Systems
GRADES 6 - 8
NM-NUM.6-8.1 Understand Numbers, Ways of Representing Numbers,
Relationships Among Numbers, and Number Systems
MATHEMATICS: Connections
GRADES Pre-K - 12
NM-CONN.PK-12.2 Understand How Mathematical Ideas Interconnect and Build on One Another to Produce a Coherent Whole
NM-CONN.PK-12.3 Recognize and Apply Mathematics in
Contexts Outside of Mathematics
MATHEMATICS: Representation
GRADES Pre-K - 12
NM-REP.PK-12.1 Create and Use Representations to Organize, Record, and Communicate Mathematical Ideas
NM-REP.PK-12.3 Use Representations to Model and
Interpret Physical, Social, and Mathematical Phenomena
SOCIAL SCIENCES: Geography
GRADES K - 12
NSS-G.K-12.1 The World in Spatial Terms
NSS-G.K-12.2 Places and Regions
TECHNOLOGY
GRADES K - 12
NT.K-12.1 Basic Operations and Concepts
NT.K-12.3 Technology Productivity Tools
NT.K-12.4 Technology Communications Tools
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Copyright© 2009 Education World
Originally published 01/16/2006
Last updated 04/24/2009