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A few months back I shared a Brazil unit for kids. I am going to be featuring a different country every couple of months. This month I created an Ethiopia unit. I wanted to do Ethiopia to bring awareness to the 40lbs Challenge going on right now. Have you heard about it? Emerged-C is donating $5 to the Charity: Water for everyone who takes the challenge! It’s so easy, too! This money will go to to help fund projects that bring clean, accessible water to communities in Ethiopia. This cause is SO important!
I loved talking with my kids about Ethiopia. I turned this into a unit for geography inner house. We learned a bit about the culture of Ethiopia as well as the differences between our countries. My kids were surprised over and over again to see how the people there live. I told them that the kids there have to carry 40 pound water jugs and that is how they get their water. It is not even clean water like ours. At the end of it all, my daughter kept saying how lucky she feels to live in our country and our house and to have clean water.
It is important for people to be aware of the blessings they have in their lives so they are more willing to help those in need. This 40lbs Challenge is a simple way to help! All you have to do is post a picture of you lifting something that is 40 lbs (or really heavy) and post it on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #40Pounds and tagging @EmergenC.
We figured out that 5 gallons of water weighs 40 pounds, so we filled up a 5 gallon jug that we have to take the challenge ourselves! Imagine carrying that every day to get water for your family.
To learn more about Ethiopia, I created a book list, we played a traditional game from Ethiopia and even tried a recipe! All of that is in my downloadable unit. It also includes some cultural facts, a flag and a map as well as a worksheet kids can fill out about what they learned.
Grab this printable in my shop– or add it to your cart now!
One thing we did to learn more about Ethiopia is to play Mancala. My kids love this game. We have a real wooden one that my sister-in-law brought back to us from Africa. But for this unit, we made our own out of sidewalk chalk and apricot pits!
Following is the book list of books about Ethiopia I put together. You can find them linked to Amazon or at your local libraries.
Ethiopia Books for Kids
E is for Ethiopia by Ashenafi Gudeta
The Perfect Orange: A Tale from Ethiopia by Frank P. Araujo
Tsion’s Life by Stacy Bellward
The Lion’s Whiskers by Nancy Raines Day
Animals to Count (Amharic/English) by Brian Wildsmith
Yafi’s Family by Linda Petitt
Explore Ethiopia– A Coloring Book by Stacy Bellward
Fire on the Mountain by Jane Kurtz
Trouble by Jane Kurtz
Grandma’s Humongous Suitcase by by Elsi Abebe
Am I Small? by Philipp Winterberg
Where Do I Come From? by Alicia Grinberg
Ethiopia by Ann Heinrichs
Pulling the Lion’s Tail by Jane Kurtz
Only a Pigeon by Jane Kurtz