Christmas Around the World

Christmas Around the World is a 105-page, three-week holiday unit for children aged 4 to 8. With a passport in hand, your family visits 12 countries: the United States, Canada, Mexico, England, France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, the Philippines, India, Japan and Australia.

Three weekly plan pages set out the trip: four countries a week from Monday to Thursday, and Fridays for kindness, carols and science. Each country starts with a travel map page with a short script for the grown-up to read, the continent to find and color, and the capital and language. Then come read-aloud facts about that country's Christmas traditions, the flag to color, a words page with the greeting and how to say it, a craft or no-bake recipe, a puzzle and a passport page with a stamp to color and glue. Eight countries also have a full coloring scene.

The crafts and recipes include a cracker gingerbread house, a letter to Santa's real Canadian address, a paper poinsettia, a Christmas cracker, a no-bake bûche de Noël, a St. Nicholas boot, a paper Lucia crown, La Befana's broom, a parol star lantern, coconut sweets, strawberry cake cups and a summer fruit wreath. The puzzles are secret codes, color-by-code pictures, a crossword, spot the difference, I-spy, a graph and a sort.

To finish there is a carol list, a 12 Days of Kindness chart, a hands-on experiment that shows why Christmas is in summer in Australia, a greetings match, two draw-and-write pages and a certificate. You get a colourful edition and an ink-saving black-and-white edition, each in US Letter and A4.