Pirate Pete is back, me hearties! The loveable goofball pirate is rip-roarin' and ready to teach your kiddies about Christmas traditions in different parts of the world. Join the funny pirate in a discussion about Christmas traditions in Finland, Australia, the Bahamas, Germany, and Japan. Plus, ol' Pete introduces students to a wild and wonderful place called Christmas Island, which is located in the Pacific Ocean. This six-page reading assignment also features a guided reading handout and four assignments to keep your students engaged around the holidays! No small feat, right? Preview before you buy!

This is a five-page packet that provides detailed instructions for the world cultures theme park project. In this project, students will apply information they know about world cultures and then create a theme park reflecting those cultures in a unique, fun way. I use it to reinforce students' knowledge about world cultures and to brush up on their mapmaking skills. This would also make an excellent project to leave with a substitute teacher, as I have provided very detailed instructions that are easy to follow. This project encourages creativity and critical thinking. You might consider using it as an alternative to a test or an essay. Students will create a theme park that demonstrates their acquired knowledge of a nation's culture, while also demonstrating an ability to accurately create and label a map. You can adapt this assignment to fit any culture (or cultures) that you have taught.

Consider purchasing this quick vocabulary assignment to introduce your students to some basic geography terminology about landforms and bodies of water. You might even use it as a vocabulary quiz. The choice is yours! There are twenty terms found in the complete assignment, with kid-friendly definitions, and an answer key for quick, simple grading. The vocabulary words included are: Basin, Bay, Butte, Canyon, Cataract, Delta, Fjord, Flood Plain, Glacier, Island, Isthmus, Mesa, Peninsula, Plain, Plateau, River Mouth, Strait, Tributary, Valley, and Volcano. Also included, please find 6 puzzles: 2 crossword puzzles, 2 word search puzzles, and 2 cryptogram puzzles. For the puzzles, I divided the 20 vocabulary words into two segments. Therefore, each puzzle contains ten vocabulary words. I found that dividing the terms in this manner made retention easier for my students.

This assignment is titled "Let's Explore the Middle East! Use a Map to Find Countries, Cities, Landforms, and Bodies of Water." This assignment includes 20 questions that require students to analyze a map of the Middle East for national borders, capital cities, landforms, and bodies of water. Here are two sample questions: "In which country is Mount Demavend located?" and "Name at least three countries that border the Red Sea." This would make a great introduction to young students preparing to study world regions for the first time.

This is a bundle of six map skills assignments for Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islands, North America, and South America. Each is titled respectively "Let's Explore! Use a Map to Find Countries, Capital Cities, Landforms, and Bodies of Water." These assignments include 20 questions each that require students to analyze a map of each continent for boundaries and borders, major cities, landforms, and bodies of water.

This map project is a fun, quirky way to allow students to demonstrate cartography and map reading skills. Let “Pirate Pete” guide your students through a culminating project about fundamental map skills: absolute location, the compass rose, the map key (or legend), and map symbols. The twist, of course, is that students must create their own treasure map, as instructed by Pirate Pete. The assignment might also make a good stand-alone substitute lesson for a day when you cannot be at school. Included in the packet is Pirate Pete’s introductory letter and a set of treasure map-making instructions.