Have a group of teachers decorate their classrooms as places that the Captain has visited. Each teacher or aide stays in the classroom and the students rotate with the aide to the different rooms. As the students visit the room the teacher or aide can stamp their pre-made passport.

Teachers cannot just push play and let the students watch. I would watch about two minutes a day, just enough to coincide with what was going on in the big book. We'd watch the video and then look at the big book and students would have all this background knowledge which would fill in the blanks. Even in those two minutes of video, I would constantly be stopping to check for understanding and use the same reading comprehension strategies I would use with the big book. This would maximize student understanding, especially when the vocabulary in the movies was tough.

I found that this made the unit one of my favorites.

To kick off this unit, our first graders go on a trip. Each teacher hosts a continent or region and plans an activity(ies) usually with a book, (but internet and powerpoint has been used), and something "crafty" related to the theme. The students rotate through each teacher's classroom spending about 45 minutes in each. They have a suitcase (made from brown construction paper the day before) and a passport. As they travel to each place, they usually listen to a story, do an activity or two, get their passport stamped, and take their "souvenir" activity with them (packed safely in their suitcase) as they zip off to another worldly location. An example may be a visit to Antarctica, listening to a story of penguins, learning a short penguin poem, and cutting and gluing a penguin of their own. Our students have also visited rainforests of South America, listening to a story about the people, animals and location of rainforests, coloring a rainforest location map and matching rainforest animals with their location (upper story, understory, etc). The kids love it! The teachers make a big thing about going on a trip. Sometimes they get to do a word search, sing a song, or see real pictures of the real places on the internet.

Make a mobile in the shape of the United State. Hang the united states symbols that are covered in the unit (ex. statue of liberty, united states flag and so on)

This activity is a typical GLAD lesson. Create a blank template of a sailboat. Label all the important parts of the sailboat in front of the class. Class can have their own templates to label during or after the lesson. They can create a wonderful addition to your Concept/Question board. For English Language Learners, stress the different vocabulary and definitions. I found that once my class (ELL students) had a better idea of what a sailboat was, Capt. Pinkney's journey became more meaningful.

In pencil, lightly draw out the seven continents on chart paper. In front of the class, trace over your drawing in a black or dark marker and then label each continent. Label each of the major oceans with the students. This is also a good time for talking about hemispheres, the equator, and how maps are globes made flat. Also see lesson plan by Mathew Needleman

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