We began by reading about Thai people in a Peter Menzel book (we have Hungry Planet and Material World), and then we read about Thai children in Where Children Sleep.
We added the following books (from the library):
Thailand (an overview of Thailand's geography, history, politics, religion, animals, etc)
An Elephant in the Backyard (my children now want an elephant in our backyard--cows aren't enough!)
The Umbrella Queen (a neat little picture book about a girl who learns to paint umbrellas in the tradition of the women in her village--but she paints hers with a twist!)
The Story of Silk (details on the process of getting silk from a silkworm, though I edited heavily due to the uber-conversational writing style)
In addition, we used Time for Kids to look up a few fast facts on Thailand and review a few photos. We also became fascinated with looms and watched some videos on looms on youtube.
And a great deal of red curry, green curry and chicken satay were consumed...all in the name of academics, of course.
My approach to education at this point is centered on simplicity. I've found that if I introduce places, people and events to my children via books or other resources, they come up with their own projects, extracurricular ideas, hands-on activities, etc. This means I do not have to create involved projects--they do it for me. And they learn to teach themselves and solve problems along the way...with an absolute minimum of busywork. This works for me!
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