India Unit for kids

We actually completed this geography lesson last year, but times being what they are (anyone know what that’s from, I vaguely remember that being from a movie or play, maybe Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead*, but I’m not sure), writing about our India unit (our original attempt) didn’t happen.

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India Unit books

Our area actually has a fairly large India expat community, so I had a plethora of books to try out with the kids.

BOOKS ABOUT INDIA THE COUNTRY

BOOKS ABOUT INDIA AND HINDUISM

• The Fantastic Adventures of Krishna– Any time you see a book by Demi available check it out from your library, the word choice is amazing.  Sadly when we did this unit it was checked out.  Someone took my advice without knowing it.
• What Makes Me a Hindu?-Nice simple book detailing what is specific to Hindus.
• What You Will See Inside a Hindu Temple– This is a great opportunity to see what a temple looks like if you can’t visit one, and let’s be honest, the ones in India are going to tend to be more spectacular (unless you’re in a major city with a large Hindu population).
• Diwali (Rookie Read-About Holidays)– These are great books for 1st or 2nd grade, the reading level is very simple, and it has AMAZING pictures.
• Hindu Cookbook (Festivals Cookbooks)– Because I always check out the cookbooks if I can.  I don’t always cook from them, but I like to pretend I am a successful cook.

BOOKS ABOUT INDIA AND HER PEOPLE

Well, actually only two people came up in my quick lazy search, but afterwards I started thinking of others.

• Mother Teresa– This is not actually the copy my library has, but it’s by Demi, see my above comments.
• Gandhi: The Father of Modern India– Our library had some fascinating books on Gandhi, this was one of the lesser ones, it’s just a straightforward recital of what happened.
• Grandfather Gandhi– This was my favorite from our library, it gave a different viewpoint.  I wrote an entire post, Gandhi lesson plan, on this book and our activities.
• Gandhi: A March to the Sea– I have this book stashed away for next year in history.  It covers Gandhi’s long walk to the sea, and I think it makes a great comparison to Martin Luther King jr. and his march.  And I adore the artwork in this book.

BOOKS ABOUT INDIA AND ITS MYTHOLOGY, FABLES, AND GENERAL FUN

This is my catch-all for the remaining books.  I specialized on mythology, fables, and fairy tales because I enjoy those, and that left only one or two generic books in my pile.  I don’t really regret that.

• One Grain Of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale – The classic tale of a little girl triumphing over the wicked and cruel Raja
• Grandma and the Great Gourd: A Bengali Folktale– sort of a reverse Little Red Riding Hood, Grandma is traveling this time.
• The Monkey and the Crocodile: A Jataka Tale from India– My kids loved this story and laughed at it.
• Tales from India: Stories of Creation and the Cosmos– This is a fairly thick tome, but well worth checking out.
• Monkey: A Trickster Tale from India– Who doesn’t like stories with a monkey?  Especially one as cute as this?
• Sacred River– It’s sort of a day in the life, or season in the life of the people living and working near or on the river.  I loved this book.
• The Jungle Book– I think I read this book 10 times when I was in 3rd grade, and this was a recent book and a movie evening at our house, so now my kids have read it as well, so I am happy.

India Unit Recipe

Originally this was a completely separate post, but as I try and simplify my blog, I’m combining posts.

I’m gonna start this off by saying I’m not a big fan of Indian food.  Mainly because I don’t like curry.  So my personal mission was to find something that didn’t involve curry for our cooking around the world spin.  And I did.
But to make it I needed tandori paste.  So, we went to our local Indian grocery.

STEP 1 IN MAKING TANDORI CHICKEN: GO TO THE INDIAN MARKET

We explored the differences between our grocery store and what they have.  It’s a fun experience.  They have many of the same things, but have a few interesting additions.  Namely spices, and specialty items.  I highly encourage you to go check out the different cultural grocery stores.  I know my area has Mexican, Asian, and Indian.  I look forward to seeing what others we have.  We’ve now gone to the Asian and Indian markets.

But, we got the items we needed: tandori paste, and I got some more sesame oil.  I love to use that for cooking.  It’s got a great flavor.

TANDORI CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS: chicken breasts, tandori paste, cucumbers, onion, yogurt

1.  Pound the chicken to about 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thickness.  Princess quite happily helped me pound it flat.Side note, this is a good time to trim off the fat, it wasn’t included in the directions.

Side note, this is a good time to trim off the fat, it wasn’t included in the directions.

2.  Measure out 1/4 cup of tandroi paste.  Pour into gallon sized Ziploc bag.  Measure out 1 cup of plain yogurt.

3.  Smush it all together.  This was quite popular with Princess.

4.  Mince 1/2 onion.  Add into the sauce.  Then put in chicken breasts and let marinate for several hours.

5.  While it’s marinating take about 1 cup of plain yogurt, the cucumber peeled and diced, and 1/4 cup of minced onion together for the sauce.

6.  Cook the chicken.  You can grill it or cook in oven at 375 for 10 minutes or so.

Serve with pita bread or rice.  I was lucky and had a friend make fresh pitas for me (SCORE!).

END RESULT: While they kids enjoyed cooking it, after I tried it, and discovered it was almost too spicy for me.  I did not serve it to the kids.  I knew that would be a horrible idea.  Horrible, horrible idea.  So, I can’t give you their opinion.  I knew they would not like it.
Have you ever had a recipe you were sure was going to work go so horribly wrong?

India Unit Activities

We started off our unit learning about Gandhi.  He’s an interesting man, and I very much enjoyed learning about him from his grandson.

Then we learned about Hinduism, you cannot learn about India without learning about Hinduism.

We read a few fables from India and had fun coming up with our own insights.

A few years ago we learned about the caste system in India, and we talked about that again, but I did not include that in our lapbook this time since officially the caste system is outlawed.

My one regret we did not learn about the Taj Mahal or build it in any way shape or form, which is a great tragedy to my mind.  Thankfully we covered it as part of The Mystery of History 3 lessons, so they learned a bit about it that way (Surprisingly there were no books on it in our library, or at least none checked in when I was getting books).

India Lapbook

I put all of the printables for our India lapbook (in the subscriber area, join my newsletter), as simple as they are in the India Printable.  Feel free to make as many copies for personal or classroom use as you wish, but make sure to give credit back to me if you’re sharing it elsewhere.

Learn more about India

• India Unit Study
• India lesson
• History of India card game
• Rangoli Craft