• Craft projects can help children learn about a country's culture, language, geography, art, music, history and everyday life. Kids who are bored with studying a country from textbooks might become more interested about a country when they can use their hands to make a map, put together a folk toy, construct a musical instrument, cook a typical snack, design a flag, assemble a diorama or create another item from the country.
  
  

Relief Map of Country

• Students can learn about a country's regions, rivers, lakes, mountains and other topographical features by making a relief map with quick drying clay. To complete this project, each student will need a photocopied 8-1/2 inch by 11 inch map of his selected country, a piece of 11 inch by 17 inch corrugated cardboard, three cups of clay, a paint brush and acrylic paint in brown, blue, green and white.
  Kids use the photocopied map to trace an outline of their country on the corrugated cardboard. They then fill in the outline with clay to form rivers, mountains and other land features while applying clay to the cardboard. Refer to the photocopied map for correct placement of the various landforms.
  After the clay is dried, students can paint land features by duplicating the color scheme used on the photocopied map. For example, a map might use green for flat areas, brown for mountains and blue for rivers and lakes. Ask them to print the name of the country on the bottom left hand corner of the cardboard.
  
  

Musical Instruments

• Discover a country's folk music with this craft project. Play a compact disc of folk music from the country and discuss the instruments used to create that music. Show pictures of typical folk instruments, then ask students to create their own replicas of those instruments with items such as round oatmeal boxes, tissue boxes, mailing tubes, toilet paper and paper towel rolls and other re-purposed items from the recycling bin.
  For example, one child could tape two plastic cups together and decorate them to resemble an African djembe drum. Alternately, kids could draw aboriginal symbols on empty gift wrap tubes to make Australian didgeridoos.
  A long, narrow spaghetti box and some rubber bands can be turned into a Russian gusli.
  Fill an empty 20 oz. plastic water bottle with dried beans to make a Mexican maraca. Adorn the bottle with masking tape and use red and green markers to draw Mexican designs.
  
  

Beaded Flags

• This quick craft helps kids learn to recognize international flags. The finished pins can be attached to a backpack or a jacket. For each child you will need a large safety pin, six medium safety pins and seed beads in colors matching the specific country's flag. String beads onto the six smaller safety pins, then thread the smaller safety pins onto the larger one. For example, make an Irish flag by stringing two pins with green beads, two with white beads and two with orange beads. Then thread the two green beads onto the larger pin, followed by the white beads and then the orange beads. Finish the flag by closing the large pin, which locks the smaller pins in place.