Games From Around the World

Teaching Geography
Games From Around the World

When teaching geography it is important to remember that geography is about people. Teaching geography is all about relating people to places. Keeping in this mind, teachers need to be sure to make connections with students when teaching geography, and the best way to do that is to find a way to make the students connect with the place. The best way to get students to connect to country or region is to have them make connections to the people that live there. Once students relate to the people living in that country or region they can understand that people are people, and we all are a like in some way. After students understand that no matter where you live we all have similarities, they can start to investigate, or research, the geographical areas and learn all about their interests. Listed below are the main areas of geography the teacher can introduce to students.

Geography Areas:

• Location
• Place
• Human/Environment/Interactions
• Movement
• Regions

Games From Around the World is a great activity to have students participate in your classroom. The activity will help students get a better understanding that children are children no matter where they come from. This activity also helps students open up, "let loose," and shoe their true self. The students will understand that there are many similarities in games from all different countries. The rules may be different, and they are played in different cultures, but the overall idea of the game is almost the same. With this activity the students can make compare/contrast statements and use visuals to make connections to other cultures. 

During class I chose  La Bella Lavandaria from Italy. The game is very similar to ring-around-the-rosie, but there is not "falling down." The game has one person in the middle and the rest of the students are in circle around the person (la lavandaria). The students gathered around in a circle sing a song instructed the middle person to do certain actions. The game was a lot of fun! Others brought in games from all over the world, and it was a lot of fun to play them and see a different side to everyone.