Hanna and I recently had the opportunity to dig into a couple of the World Culture courses offered by Tina’s Learning Adventures. I honestly don’t do reviews just for the sake of reviews, I do them when it’s something we would have actually used, or are already interested in. These courses fit the bill… we’re always interested in learning more about Asia. The courses we had access to are Japan and Thailand.
Once you’ve signed up, you log in and you’ll find all your courses in the back office. It makes it really easy to find the courses you’ve paid for. (Which isn’t always the case lol).
Once you click on the course you want to work on, it starts off with an introduction and an interactive activity. Tina walks you through all the ways to get the most out of the course, and does a great job of explaining how she’s set things up and how to use the resources available. She also makes suggestions about how and how often to use the course.
The next step is an interactive introduction. It’s kind of like an open book quiz. You download a “country report” booklet (which you can print out or fill out online) and fill in your answers as you work through the questions. She covers basic geography, as well as culture, government, lifestyle etc of the country. It’s a quick overview of the country you’re getting ready to learn more about. I will say, Hanna has a pretty low tolerance for anything that even smells a little “schooly”, and this introduction activity felt pretty schooly to her. She made it through, I’d say, 3/4 of it before she was like… “Do I really have to finish this?!”. It is what it is. For kids who don’t mind things that remind them of school activities it will be great.
Once she left the introduction activity and jumped into the stations she was much happier. The stations are broken down into read, watch, write, listen, create and play. Tina has done a great job of curating a list of activities in each station to interact with. Hanna’s favorite stations, no surprise, were the watch and create (which included recipes). We were both pretty excited to see a recipe for Thai Tea, which we absolutely have plans to make. She covers a wide variety of topics in these stations, and I found it to be a well rounded way to work through the course. The content is absolutely secular, though there is an introduction to religion, based on the country you’re studying. For example, one of the articles offered in the “read” station is about Buddhism in Thailand.
All in all these are fantastic courses, and you can learn a lot by going through each of the stations and spending a little time regularly. I love that she’s pulled together so many resources about each country, and she always seems to be adding more! It’s pretty much the way we do school… but much more organized. 😀 I think she’s set the price a little low, but that’s a win for you. There’s way more value in these courses than the price she’s asking.
These courses came about from watching The Amazing Race, and learning about the country the racers were traveling through. I would definitely add the amazing race episodes in with the courses… because… Amazing Race! So much learning there. 🙂
Go ahead and take a look at Tina’s Learning Adventures. There’s only a couple finished at this time, but she’s working on a bunch more.
