TIME for Kids

This site (http://www.timeforkids.com/around-the-world) gives kids a glimpse into the cultures of a broad range of countries. It features 8 African, 10 Asian, 9 European, 2 Middle Eastern, 2 Central American, and 6 South American. Also included are the United States, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It teaches about the most popular places to visit in each country/state/commonwealth, its history, its native language, and what a day in the life of a 9–12 year old kid from each country/state/commonwealth looks like. The information is substantial and significant. Although I would absolutely use this site in my own teaching or recommend it to somebody else, I don’t think that the aesthetics of the site are great—the advertising is very distracting and it isn’t set up in a very navigationally friendly way.

The features Native Lingo and A Day in the Life are especially useful in creating connections and a starting point for discussing similarities and differences. Providing kids with an outline of what another kid’s day-to day life entails, such as the way they communicate and their daily routine, is very relatable and potentially eye opening. Language and daily routines are such fundamental and basic elements of everybody’s lives that it is sometimes hard to imagine how distinct these elements can be elsewhere. TIME for Kids certainly is a good start. I wish I were able to find another similar site with kids’ profiles. It would be wonderful to find a free site that combines the idea of the Native Lingo and A Day in the Life features on TIME for Kids with the information and beautiful layout of Dorling Kindersley’s Eyewitness book, Children Just Like Me: A Unique Celebration of Children Around the World.