World Unit : France

We studied France and its history, geography, and culture through stories and their art.  I love searching what to study once we have a theme.  I search our library for all the books they have in the subject we’d like to study and check them out.  I organize them in areas, like science, art, or history, or people and places.  I really enjoy doing this prep work.  

Then we get the books and dive in.  Fully.  From cooking, to reading non-fiction and fiction, and making art projects, or crafts.  I like to mix a little of everything.  We all like it that way. 

To study France, we started by reading in the World History Encyclopedia, all about France.  From the beginning of cave paintings, through Medieval Times, and the Renaissance, to the modern times.  We focused more in the times we liked the stories more.  If there was someone or something we wanted to learn more about.

Like the two days we spent learning and reading about Marie Antoinette.  Siena especially liked her story and reading about her life.  We also spent a lot of time learning about some of the big French scientists (I posted about that here.)  And most of all, we spent lots of weeks learning about different artists, and I think we need another month to learn about all of the ones we are interested in learning more about.  (That post coming up later.)

The books we used for this unit are (in no special order):

• A Spree in Paree by Catherine Stock.
• Crepes by Suzette by Monica Wellington.
• Everybody Bonjours! by Leslie Kimmelman.
• A Walk in Paris by Salvatore Rubbino.
• This is Paris by Miroslav Sasek.  I think one of my favorite books for this unit.
• The French Culture Coloring Book by Anne-Francoise Pattis.
• Find Out About : France by Duncan Crosbie.
• Look What Came From France by Miles Harvey.
• E is for Eiffel Tower : A France Alphabet by Helen L. Wilbur.
• France ABC : A Book About the People and Places of France by Sharon Katz Cooper.
• Joan of Arc by Demi.
• Joan of Arc : Heroine of France by Ann Tompert.
• Marie Antoinette, Queen of France by Mary Englar.
• The Art of Dress : Fashion in England and France 1750-1820 by Aileen Ribeiro.
• Versailles : Places in History by Antony Mason.
• Seeker of Knowledge : The Man Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs by James Rumford.
• The French Revolution by Adrian Gilbert.
• You Wouldn’t Want to Be an Aristocrat in the French Revolution!  A Horrible Time in Paris You’d Rather Avoid by Jim Pipe.
• Napoleon : The Story of the Little Corporal by Robert Burleigh.
• Lives of Extraordinary Women : Rulers, Rebels (and What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull.
• Jacques Cousteau : A Life Under the Sea (Sterling Biographies) by Kathleen Olmstead.
• Manfish : A Story of Jacques Cousteau by Jennifer Berne.
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

We also watched some videos:

• Rick Steve’s Europe
• Paris video online.  A short documentary.
• Top 10 attractions of Paris.
• Paris with kids.
• Paris.
• Families of France.
• The Palace of Versailles : A Grand Tour Inside the Historic French Palace.

Other resources we used:

• At Se7en, a homeschool’s family study of France and some links.
• Made by Joel (also from Portland) has beautiful printouts for Paris.
• The Louvre Museum online.
• Coloring pages from here.
• Europe’s Lesson Plans and resources from here.
• National Geographic Kids website.
• Time for Kids, about France.
• Great little booklet to make from her template.
• Site with lapbook idea and unit study in France.
• France : Adventure Travel Map by National Geographic.
• Famous French People Coloring pages.
• French 101 by Travel Linguistic.

I will be adding more resources as we finish our unit and things come up.

And if you have anything else you’ve enjoyed and would like to share, please do so in the comments.  It will be great to have those resources.  Hope you enjoyed these links and maybe it can spark a theme to study or maybe find something you’ve been looking for.  Thanks for coming to visit!  I will share real life photos when we come back from our trip.  I know we will have so much to share and won’t want to forget anything.