Around the World with Phineas Frog

I have been collecting books about geography for several months now in anticipation of a new school year. American children don't score well in the area of geography on national tests. As the librarian of all the students in my school, I plan to emphasize geographical lessons throughout this year. While reading "Around the World with Phineas Frog: A Geographical Puzzle," I found ideas popping in my head for using this children's book. Basically, the story line finds Miss Frog (the name used throughout the story) giving her father, Phineas Frog, a hot air balloon to alleviate his boredom by taking him away! She gets caught up in the adventure (a little pun there, but you would need to see the illustration to understand) and away they both go! At each destination--and they do see the world-- the same routine occurs: Phineas makes good use of his time by sightseeing while Miss Frog spends money buying souvenirs. However, early on, a hole is torn in her shopping bag and souvenirs go out almost as fast as they go in. I think this is supposed to be funny, but I think it is a colossal waste of money and certainly not amusing. In fact, this whole thing of the young woman (er, frog) wasting money and opportunity sets a bad example for girls. The dad fondly handing over more money at each of the many stops is also not amusing. On the positive side the book does have much merit. First, if I were home-schooling children, I would take one stop at a time and have the child research all the places Phineas visited and identify all the items that Miss Frog bought from that one stop. Each item is very characteristic of its home location. I would have the child create a document booklet filled with these pages about each place, or create a Slide Show, or design a brochure for a travel agency taking travelers on this whirlwind tour of the world. Included would be a map designating all the places visited. An example of places Phineas visits in China: Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, while she buys chopsticks, a teapot, a gong, a fan, a parasol, and a dainty Ming bowl. Oh yes, illustrations of the touristy areas and all Miss Frog's purchases complete each visit. I could read this book aloud and show the illustrations, but I don't see how students could absorb anything. Instead, I would create a list of countries that the pair visit, listing tourist areas and souvenirs. I would hand out a list to a pair of students to research and create their own visuals and identifications. They would do this assignment before seeing the book. One page for sights, one page for souvenirs. Then we would compile them into a booklet entitled "Countries We 'Visited.'" Or they could create posters or wall murals (on paper!). Or even imagine the library as a flat map and place the document sheets in the approximation of the countries. That activity would certainly address kinetic and spatial learners. Books take us places. Children's books, atlases, almanacs, nonfiction books abo

This is a fun way for older elementary kids to learn some geography or test what they already know. In this book Phineas Frog and his daughter travel the globe. You have to figure out where they are from clues within the poetry on each page. It's a fun book for parent and child to do together. It's NOT for young children, though! It was WAY over my four year old's head.

This is SUCH a neat book! Phineas and his daughter embark on a world tour in his hot air balloon. At each stop, Phineas does some sightseeing and his daughter does some shopping, purchasing souvenirs found in each country. The pictures are comical, the rhyming story is fun, and the puzzle is challenging, though not difficult. My 4 year old and I have gone through the book and it held her attention the whole time. I had thought we might need to read through it in several sittings. We haven't solved the puzzles at the end of the book yet. My 9 year old will be able to solve the puzzles on her own. They involve going back through the book, looking at the places they stopped and what they collected (and lost), then taking letters from these words to spell the answers to the puzzles. FUN!

This book really helped my children with their geographic skills! I would reccomend this book to any family with children!