How to Turn a Book Into a Class

A wonderful example of how educators are coming up with creative ways to keep kids learning during this difficult time comes from Chicago-based educator Kathryn Born. She and her daughter are following along with my book Micronations, using it as the basis for a series of lessons that she’s also sharing online, with the hopes that other families will join them.

Thanks to the generosity of my publisher Nomad Press, she is also able to show some of the material on her blog for a limited time. Born writes:

“Micronations is a great book, especially right now, and especially with an influx of parents who are suddenly homeschooling for the first time. The book is a great resource as you can simply read it and do the exercises, there isn't a lot of direct instruction they have to design themselves. You can also do all the activities with supplies they already have.”

Educators often tell me they use my books as a teaching guide — which is only natural, since many of them grew out of afterschool classes I taught when my kids were young. My micronations class, which was called “Invent Your Own Country,” was one of my favorites. (My youngest son told me it was the best class he had ever taken, so there you go.)

In my classes, I loved the ideas the students came up with for their countries, and the great artifacts they made to represent them. They even expanded upon my lessons by reaching out to other micronational governments in the class to form their own alliances and trading agreements — a remarkably diplomatic concept for fourth- and fifth-graders to embrace! Here’s a sampling of what they produced:

Born’s project with her daughter reflects the times we’re living through:

“The book asks, If you were going to start your own nation, from scratch, how would you design it? How would your government run? What would your laws be? I’m doing a COVID-19 version of this with my 12-year old, so we are adapting it to ‘if your household was a nation, a kingdom, an imaginary country, how would we run it?’ (Which is kind of what’s happening with this isolation many families are in. Our homes have become our micro-universe.) ”

What’s more, Born writes, the project is giving her daughter a way to talk about the anxieties she’s facing in these uncertain times. “This book is a good discussion starting point about why countries are making the decisions they are right now,” she says.

Born is hoping to host an online World’s Fair with other “emergency homeschoolers” when the project is done. I can’t wait to see it!

Find more advice and support on my Homeschooling page!