Yes, of course you can. If you are inspired to build a similar project for your family, please do. The impact this is having on our children is incredible and I want you to experience the joy of it. For those who want to spend more time enjoying the adventure with a community of like-minded people (instead of having to create it on their own), they happily pay the small subscription fee to support the community and other project ideas for future phases of Country of the Week.

While our family runs the program on a Monday to Sunday schedule (we start the week when school does), others do what works for them. Some run it Wednesday to Tuesday and others yet simply dedicate one evening a week for COTW. Some watch videos about the country with their kids just before bed, others prepare a weekly dinner according to the country. We generally use breakfast time for watching videos and mealtimes for making food. This is very much a “choose your own adventure” type of project.

This whole project is just that—you get to choose, each and every week, how far down the rabbit hole you go. A busy family week might only permit you to scratch the surface on a country whereas the next, you might spend hours looking up additional materials online for a country you can’t get enough of. Country of the Week simply supplies the basic framework (digital delivery so you don't forget, country profile sheet, recommendations), you then craft it for your needs as you’d like.

Many different types of people have expressed interest in this project and use it. Regular families with young children ages 5 - 10, homeschooling families, teachers, and daycare providers are some of the most common members of the COTW community. Of course, if you're a curious adult (like I am) then it's kind of for you too!

I created this project when our daughters were 5 and 7 years old. As such, everything has always been written and displayed with them and their level of comprehension in mind. As well, as children grow up, more and more distractions and extracurricular opportunities present themselves. I feel that the younger a child is when starting this, the greater the likelihood of completing the entire four-year project. That said, there are COTW users who have older children that love the program. I do have ideas for another level of Country of the Week geared toward youth ages 10 - 15 years old but this is only an idea right now. It may come to life with future phases of this project.

Yes and no. Having your own colour printer does make things easiest. If you do not have a colour printer at home, you can simply print your country profile sheets at a local office supply store. If the demand exists, I have ideas to offer a digital + print edition of Country of the Week for those who would rather receive printed sheets directly from the program.

You need to print the country profile sheet. The importance of the printed sheet cannot be underestimated. In todays heavily digitalized world, there is something really incredible about the physical nature of the sheet hung on the wall, as opposed to just another “notification” that is forgotten in 5 minutes. The frequent daily interaction with the country profile sheet will also serve as a reminder of the project and help engage guests who come to your home. Your family will also flip through past country profile sheets through games you’ll make up (and that we will suggest) and they’ll become something you will all cherish together.

Yes, I mean, why not? Maps are cool! You could use a globe or an atlas which is cool too. But I mean…maps are awesome! Any map will do, but the more space you give it, the more detailed it will be, making it easier for your little ones to find your weekly country. (You’ll appreciate having a map, trust me!)

Yes there is! This website is powered by the Kajabi platform so all you need to do is download the Kajabi app to your tablet or mobile phone and sign into it with your Country of the Week email and password. Voila, it’s as simple as that!

Yes. The thinking behind the start of this was that, at one country per week, the program will run for approximately 4 years. Some weeks, you might be through what interests you about a country in one or two days, other weeks, you’ll wish you could spend a month exploring a particular country. Seven days is a good average and easy to schedule around.

With the current setup of this website, that is not possible. One country every two weeks would also turn what is a four year program into an eight year program. That length of time might prove very challenging to complete (four years is already a very big goal).

Unfortunately, delivery can not be paused with the current setup of this website. Simply print the country profile sheets that come in while you are away and file them in your binder of past countries for your children to flip through and play with on their own.

The best option is to always have your “current” country on the wall. When a free 30 minutes presents itself one week, jump back into your binder of previous countries and find one you might have missed doing. You’ll always have access to all previous country resources from the “My Countries” tab above. You must be ok with missing countries when life gets busy or you find yourself away from home or you’ll take on feelings of guilt that you “aren’t succeeding” in the program. Ditch those negative feelings and always move forward.

The delivery order of countries has been carefully planned so that from week to week, you will be constantly bouncing around the globe. Sometimes, but not always, you'll go from a large country to a small country, wealthy to impoverished, very well known to less heard of, etc. The order will be a surprise so that all involved have something to look forward to each week!

My selection for country-specific information (online research) is driven by what our children might find interesting. Wikipedia (for example) provides good information on official languages, population numbers, etc (I support them every year with a donation and urge you to do the same). If I find something that sounds a little too wild to be true, I verify the details from multiple sources before deciding to use it.

After much thought, we decided to use the United Nations list of U.N. members (193 countries) plus the two U.N. observer states (Vatican City and Palestine). Two more decisions for this project affect our country count. We split the United Kingdom into England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We also chose to include Niue and the Cook Islands because, while they are technically overseas territories of New Zealand, they function as unique highly self-governing independent countries and are sometimes included on country lists (and we had already done Niue and our oldest daughter fell in love with it so…I couldn’t really remove it after that!) This brings our country count for this project to precisely 200.

I am fairly certain of the written content, but am completely open to having others help clarify my work. Imperfections will be found. As for the video recommendations, we cannot guarantee their content. If you see anything that doesn’t appear right, please leave a comment within the section for that country or contact us directly.

Yes, kind of. I avoid the word “teaching” because this really comes down to how you operate the project in your home and what conversations you choose to have about each country. My purpose is to inspire, fascinate and engage the curious minds of 5 - 10 year olds. Will they also learn something along the way? Yes, probably! When appropriate, we have also used this project to help our children understand ideas around the poverty line, fair trade goods and even genocide. We encourage all parents and caregivers to have open dialogue with their children about any topics that might come up when exploring a country.

I have purchased all photos, along with commercial usage rights for use in Country of the Week from Shutterstock. They are an incredible resource for global photography and I highly recommend them if you ever need great images from any place or any thing in the world. The content produced by Country of the Week is not to be replicated in any manner outside of printing for your personal use.