Houses and Homes

Knowing how other homes loook around the world is interesting to children just learning about different cultures. Great photos.

This is a great way for children to view other cultures and how they live. Children often cannot think beyond what they can see, feel, touch, and hear at such a young age. This book had wonderful, vivid details in each colored page. I scanned the images in and made a lesson plan out of it. The kids loved to learn about others around the world.

While the text of the book is not particularly inspiring, it is an introduction to the different ways some people live around the world. My daughter is not yet two but she loves Ann Morris' entire series of books and likes to identify things in each photograph. We use the books to discuss differences and similarities between how we and others live. The photos are obviously dated but I don't believe that alters the impact of what the author and photographer are trying to do. As she grows, we intend to continue to read these books, moving on from identifying simple items to talking about cultures, traditions, environments, geography, and etc. The back of each book contains a map and descriptions of locations/actions for each page and will allow us to talk about where places are in relation to one another. I recommend these books for curious children starting at age 18 months and all the way up into the school years.

This is a beautiful book with gorgeous illustrations. I found it very useful in my second grade social studies unit.

Houses and Homes is a great book to stimulate conversation for young beginning readers! The photos alone are worth a thousand words. I used this book as a lead in for a discussion with first graders about different types of homes around the world. The text is simple enough that they'll read it unassisted over and over. The index in the back of the book, along with a world map, is very informative! It states the specific country where each photo was taken and gives detailed information on the uses of the types of homes shown. The descriptions also include information on the relationships between homes, cultures, and climates around the world. My 5 year old nephew, a beginning reader, would not put the book down. If he wasn't actually reading the book, he was spending time looking at the real-life photos!