EAST BRUNSWICK–Helping children take a closer look at different nations and cultures, the East Brunswick Library sponsors a monthly “Country Club” program.
“I started the club to increase the children’s exposure to geography and learning about other countries,” Youth Services Librarian Alison McGreevey said.
Country Club is a monthly program for children in first grade and up, where they explore a different country every month, according to McGreevey.
“A typical program will include listening to a book about the country, map/geography work, watching a short video, cooking some food from that country, and sometimes a craft, dance, language or writing lesson,” McGreevey said.
McGreevey said every month the participants fill out a short sheet about the country which includes identifying the capital, continent, language spoken and something to visit in that country. They also have to color in the flag and find the country and New Jersey on a world map.
Country Club has run almost every month since its inception in February 2015, according to McGreevey.
“We’ve done about 38 countries including some non-countries such as Antarctica and Easter Island. When choosing countries I try to move around the world month to month so we are doing different regions of the world,” McGreevey said.
The club meets in the library’s Youth Services department one Monday a month. The next meeting will be from 5:30-6:30 p.m. on July 30 at the library’s Youth Services programming room, located at 2 Jean Walling Civic Center.
For July, McGreevey said the Country Club will learn about New Zealand.
“In our global world and in this diverse community it only makes sense to learn about other cultures. Plus, we try new foods and [have] fun. I don’t know how much time school systems can devote to learning geography so this is a space where kids can get a chance to learn about the world around them,” McGreevey said. “Additionally, I keep track of which countries each child attends and give a small geography prize for every six countries they learn about.”
To join the club, McGreevey said participants may simply show up at a session.
For upcoming dates, visit www.ebpl.org/main/ebpl-events-calendar.cfm.
Contact Vashti Harris at [email protected].