Global Trade Game that Promotes US Industry Created by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Global Trade Game that Promotes US Industry by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Resources for this Game.  (You do not need to use all of them, but you should know how these resources work):

- Online CIA Factbook, which lists all countries of the world

- UN Statistics Division - unstats.un.org

- You Eat What You Are by Thelma Barer-Stein, which describes the cuisines of many countries of the world.  This book is old, but it reminds people of how important it is to have protein-carbohydrate-vegetable meals.

- Google Maps feature

- U.S. Geographical Service – usgs.gov

- State websites with Chamber of Commerce listings

- U.S. Department of Commerce – commerce.gov

 Google Microphone – learn to correctly pronounce all foreign words, especially people’s names

- The Lonely Planet World Travel Book

For Each Country of the World do the Following:

1 – Develop a strategy for making each country self-sufficient in food based following the principles of their traditional diet. 

Are there substitute crops that could be sold planted? 

Could the US sell seeds, agricultural equipment, and agricultural consulting services there?

Outline your analysis in a journal and discuss with your family your ideas before taking action. 

Can your food self-sufficiency plan still allow the country to produce products that the World Bank could finance, for example?

2 – Analyze What Food Storage and Cooking Products are Needed at the Most Basic Level that could be initially sold to the country and then produced there through subsidiary:

These items could include:

-plastic bins to keep dry goods dry

-cookstove

-pots

-pans

-utensils

-cutlery

-hot pads, napkins, tablecloths

-cleaning brushes

-plastic wash tubs

-knives

3 – Look at the Seed Resources, Livestock Breeding Resources, and Educational Resources in Your State

Could any of these resources or consulting services about these industries be sold to the country you are working on that would help make them self-sufficient in food?

Are any trade restrictions imposed by the US government that could prevent trade with that country?  Check with the US Department of Commerce and your state congresspeople.

4 – Look at the geography of the country you are analyzing:

Are there transportation items we could sell the country to help with food, clothing, and shelter in different areas of the country?

5 – Look at Educational Facilities in the Country:

Are there any needs the country has for trainers in teaching people how to type or use computers? Or, work on assembly lines or with statistics?

6 – What is the Communications Infrastructure in the Country Like?

Could your state sell them telecommunications products?

7 – Do a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat Analysis) for the Country You are Working on for sales of the following items:

-cooking items

-food storage needs

-transportation needs (many hi-tech trains run on tracks from the 19^th century)

-housing needs such as mobile homes or products such as insulation, paint, and/or Venetian blinds

8 – For Threats, how could trades with this country lower terrorism threats?

9 – What kinds of recycling consulting services and/or machines could your state offer to the country you are studying?

10 – What kinds of basic sanitation products and educational consulting services could your state offer the country you are studying?

11 - When you have done all of the above for every country in the world read Beyond the World Bank Agenda: An Institutional Approach to Development by Howard Stein.

Do a 5-page summary on Stein's book.  

Then, write a pro or con book review on whether or not you agree with Stein's book based on the research you have just done.

Keep your notes in a journal to discuss with your family.

Game Created by Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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French Dictation Teas in Anjou (France) Game by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

French Dictation Teas Game by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

I learned abut French Dictation Teas in the Anjou region of the Loire Valley when my family visited one of our relatives’ homes in the town of Saumur (France).

Saumur is a town located on one of the tributaries of the Loire River.  The town is home to the Cadre Noir Equestrian School, Quarts de Chaume and Bonnezeaux wine vineyards, and Crémant de Loire sparkling wine outlets.

Saumur is most famous as the setting for the de Balzac’s novel Eugénie Grandet.  (This novel has also been made into a film.)  There are “troglodyte” cave homes along the river decorated with window boxes of red geraniums dangling against the white rock of the hills.

I learned from our family member that senior ladies gathered for a cup of tea and cookies every week to this day to do their weekly tea dictation party, which is run as follows:

The leader chooses a paragraph from 3 different literary works by authors usually poets.  The rhythm of poetry preserves the French language best.

Before guests come to the leader’s home for the tea, the leader makes sure that she can correctly pronounce all the words in the three passages.

The leader also uses punctuation as an aid for listeners’ to better understand the passage.

On the day of the Dictation Tea, the group leader reads the first paragraph as guests listen.

Then, the guests ready their pens to write their weekly exercise to preserve the French language.  Each time the Germans have invaded and occupied France, French school children were made to learn German at school.  These Dictation Teas helped preserve the language in these circumstances.

The leader reads one sentence in the passage slowly as participants write the passage.  When the participants are done writing, the leader repeats the sentence allowing the participants to grammatically correct their sentences.

When that sentence is done, the leader goes on to the next sentence and repeats the process for the next sentence.

The leader continues this process until the paragraph is finished.

As a final step, the leader reads the paragraph again slowly, so participants can do their final edits to the paragraph.

The next step is for the participants to compare the edits they made and have a recorder (secretary) make a final copy of the paragraph that is the group or team project.

Then, the leader hands out a copy of the paragraph with a note about the source (title of the book where the paragraph came from, author, and the date of the publication) to correct against the team’s paragraph.

The group goes over the original text versus the copy the participants produced to correct the group paragraph.  This little game helps participants keep French grammar, pronunciation, and literature in the Anjou and Touraine regions standard.

The group leader and participants then repeat this process for the next two paragraphs chosen by the leader.

At the very end, the leader reads the Dictation of Mérimée for fun.  (See my blog on this dictation on the Savvy Mom Ruth Paget website for information about this dictation.)

The group attendees see how many errors they made on this dictation once the leader finishes reading it.  The participant with the fewest mistakes gets to be Prince Richard Klemen von Metternich, the Austrian diplomat, who beat Napoleon by making fewer mistakes than Napoleon did on this dictation.

I am not sure if this is traditional, but I would make the dictation winner, the player who leads off a card game of euchre, which is also called Napoleon.

The French Dictation Tea can be used with children and teens to teach French pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and the rhythm of the French language.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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La Perouse the Explorer Game with 6 Expansions Created by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

La Pérouse the Explorer Game with 6 Game Expansions Created by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

This game has a local twist for Monterey County (CA) residents, since the French trade explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Toulouse (1741 – 1788) set shore in Monterey as one stop of his exploration of the Pacific before disappearing in Vanikoro (the Solomon Islands).

This French trade explorer know as La Pérouse was on a “scientific” mission given to him by King Louis XVI of France to find markets for the French fashion industry’s fur trade from suppliers in Canada and the US and to find fertile whaling grounds.  No doubt his sailors ate like the ones described in Hermann Melville’s Moby Dick.

This is a detective game that requires some reading and analysis to answer task questions whose answers still affect international politics today.

Moby Dick Questions:

-Which countries had whaling industries?

-How were different parts of the whale used?

-How were sailors on the boats fed versus the officers?

The Journals of La Pérouse

Basically, La Pérouse had to do the following tasks:

-locate fur markets in Asia for the French fashion industry

-find a Northwest Passage through Canada to transport goods from the Pacific to the Atlantic

-find good “whaling” grounds for the French whaling industry

The tasks for this La Pérouse the Explorer Game are to:

-find all the stops La Pérouse made in the Pacific Ocean before he vanished

-for the places La Pérouse explored see if there are signs of French culture left in them today.

-the above task requires some research into French culture.  To make that an easier task think of signs that you can see easily like French baguette in a bakery window

-decide which of La Pérouse’s stops were for the French fashion fur trade or for the whaling trade

-look up different species of whales and the areas in the ocean latitudes they are located at. 

-think about why whales at different latitudes might be different from each other.

The French Huguenot historian Jules Michelet (1798 – 1874) wrote whales at different latitudes in his book La Mer (1861).

-where do the French still have colonies today in the Pacific?

-are these French colonies on trading routes, by historical whaling grounds, or by both

Working on these questions before, during, and after you go on your whale watching trip and other historical whale industry sites in Monterey County will make your sightseeing trip seem more like an adventure story for you and your family, too:

Suggested Monterey County La Pérouse the Explorer Field Trips

-visit the La Pérouse Memorial at the Carmel Mission in Carmel, California and the Mission’s Museum

-vist the Whaling Museum at Point Lobos State Park outside Carmel, California

-go on a whale sightseeing trip out of Monterey or Moss Landing across from Elkhorn Slough

As a final note, I would add that my family cleaned the brass plaque memorial to La Pérouse at the Carmel Mission about 6 years ago as a project for the Alliance Française of the Monterey Peninsula.

Maybe exhibits about the historical whaling industry in Monterey would be good to have in the Carmel Mission, Point Lobos, and Portola Plaza downtown. 

This La Pérouse the Explorer Game for a whale watching outing to the Monterey Peninsula would be fun for a San Jose State librarian to run as a workshop on gigmaster.com. 

A San Jose State librarian could also add a workshop on how to do reference online and with reference books to answer the task questions.

La Pérouse the Explorer Game: 6 Expansions by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget – suggested by Ruth Pennington Paget

Today French scientists want to save ocean animals and coral reefs, especially after the documentaries of Jacques Cousteau captured the beauty and fragility of the oceans of the world.

In these La Pérouse the Explorer Game expansions, you have 6 tasks to do for each animal you can find in Monterey County (California):

La Pérouse the Explorer Expansion 1:

-Look up what kind of habitat (home) each animal needs to live, have children, and raise children to adulthood.

-Once you know the information above, look at the environment in Monterey County and see how you could improve and/or maintain the habitat (home) for the following Monterey County animals:

-sea otters

-egrets

-brown pelicans

-hares (rabbits with long ears)

-harbor seals

-hawks

-condors (Watch a video about their habitat, home.  They hide.)

-monarch butterflies

-starfish (Have these been reintroduced yet?)
-bats

-deer

Answer each of those questions above for each animal.

Use an encyclopedia like World Book to do your research.  Most libraries have this encyclopedia.

La Pérouse the Explorer: Expansion 2

When you visit Monterey County, buy a postcard of the animals listed above.  (You can find postcards of many of these animals all over Monterey County.)

Note on the postcard what you think of the animal’s habitat. 

Sample Questions:

Are the animal’s young safe? 

How is their food supply being affected? 

Is the color of the animal’s skin different from that on the postcard?

La Pérouse the Explorer Game Expansion 3:

Make a La Pérouse the Explorer Journal

-Paste a photo you have taken or a postcard on the front of your personalized journal and use calligraphy to call it “La Pérouse the Explorer Journal: Monterey County.”

In other parts of the world or California, the region you list will be different, but this is a model for other regions to follow.

Inside the journal, you can write notes abut what you learned about animals with photos or postcards and what you did with your parents on your field trip.

You can practice drawing animals in your journal and writing poetry as well.

La Pérouse the Explorer Game Expansion 4:

La Pérouse collected plants on his voyage around the Pacific Ocean to send back to France.

You have 2 tasks to do here at Level 4:

-Identify the kinds of plants and trees that grow in the places that La Pérouse visited.

-Find out how to get a plant from the South Pacific back to France for each plant you identify above.

La Pérouse the Explorer Game Level 5

-Read the following books about sailing and the oceans

-After you read a book, make a 2-page summary of the book to discuss why the information is still important today with family and friends

Go chapter-by-chapter and do at least 2 paragraphs per chapter

-Book of Sailing Knots: How to Tie and Correctly Use over 50 Essential Knots by Peter Owen

-How to Draw Cool Ships and Boats:  From Sailboats to Ocean Liners by Fiona Gowen

-Learn to Sail: A Beginner’s Guide to the Art, Equipment, and Language of Sailing on a Lake or Ocean by Dennis Connor and Michael Levitt

Make a word list of the equipment and define it in terms you understand: 

Give yourself spelling tests on the equipment words. 

Then, write the words out and write the definitions next to them. 

Check the definitions you wrote against your definition list.

-Draw 50 Boats, Ships, Trucks, and Trains:  The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Submarines, Sailboats, Dump Trucks, Locomotives, and Much More by Lee J. Ames

-Sails: The Way they Work and How to Make Them by Derek Harvy

-How to Design Small Sailboats by Edward Clever Seibert

La Pérouse the Explorer Game Expansion 6

Plan a sailing or boating vacation on Lake Naciamento in South Monterey County where the temperatures can reach 110 degrees in the summer.

-learn the directional buoy system

-learn how to sail with your parents

-learn how to drive a motor boat with your parents

By Ruth Paget, Author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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