How To Help Teach Children About Their Country And The World

After children have explored themselves, their families, their neighborhoods, and different types of communities, it’s time for the biggest step yet: discovering where they fit into their country and the wider world.

This is a wonderful way to wrap up a primary social studies unit because it brings everything together. Kids have learned that they are part of something bigger; now they get to see just how big that “something” is.

Introducing Our Country

A good place to start is with a map of your country. Show children where they live and where their town or city is located. If they’ve already made a map of their community, you can layer this learning:

• Zoom Out Together: Show how their small community is part of a province or state, then part of the whole country.
• Symbols and Flags: Talk about what the flag represents and why countries use symbols to show who they are.
• Landmarks and Regions: Share pictures of important places across the country: mountains, lakes, cities, or historic sites and help students notice how different areas look and feel.

Taking It Global

Once children understand their country, you can take one more step back to look at the world as a whole. This can feel big and abstract to young learners, so keep it simple and concrete:

• Find Your Place on a Globe: Kids love spinning a globe to find where they live.
• Explore Other Countries: Read picture books or watch short videos about children in other parts of the world. Talk about what’s the same (families, schools, play) and what’s different (clothing, houses, foods).
• Celebrate Connections: If you have students with family members in other countries, invite them (if they’re comfortable) to share traditions or greetings in another language.

Keeping It Gentle and Inclusive

Some children may have left another country recently or have family far away. Others may have experienced conflict or hardship connected to where they’re from. Here are a few ways to keep this unit safe for everyone:

• Give options for sharing: Children can choose to share about a favorite food, a flag they like, or a country they want to visit.  It doesn’t have to be personal.
• Focus on similarities first: Talk about how kids everywhere go to school, eat meals, and play games. This creates a connection before diving into differences.
• Celebrate diversity: Emphasize that every culture adds something special to the world.

Using Mapping Skills

This stage ties perfectly into map-reading skills. Students can locate their country on a world map, trace borders, and begin to see continents and oceans.

The Mapping Skills Activities Make Maps Map Reading Using Grids Legends Symbols etc, and Mapping Skills with Grids, Legends, and Symbols resources are excellent for building confidence. They break down map features into clear, kid-friendly steps so children can read and create maps.

Once they have practiced making smaller maps, they can look at country and world maps and practice using the skills they have learned to read and create larger maps.

Looking at the country and the world helps children see themselves as part of a global story. They learn that:

• They belong to a community, a country, and a shared planet.
• People everywhere have both differences and common ground.
• We are all connected, and what we do can make a difference beyond our own backyard.

This post wraps up the “Growing Our World” series. By starting with “me,” moving through neighborhoods and communities, exploring different types of communities, and finally reaching out to the world, we’ve given children a strong foundation for understanding their place in the bigger picture.

With these steps, social studies becomes more than memorizing facts; it becomes a way for children to see who they are, where they belong, and how they can help make the world a better place.

I hope you have found this series helpful in directing your social studies lessons with young children. Even implementing some of these activities and tips will help kids appreciate the world around them and how their own story connects to others and to the world.

By starting small and building outward, we can give children a sense of belonging and inspire them to see themselves as active, caring members of their communities and the world.

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