by

Name of Country: Show where

Area/Region your country
is located
(Shade in the region of the world that your country is a part of)
on this
● North America ● South America ● Africa world map.
● Europe ● Asia ● Australia ● Oceania

Just the Facts

● Current Leader(s):_______________________ ● Language(s):___________________________
My Map of
________________________________________ ● Currency:______________________________
Instant Personal Poster Sets: Cool Country Report © Scholastic Teaching Resources

● Capital:_________________________________
● Location and/or Neighboring Countries:
________________________________________
________________________________________
● Size (in square miles):___________________
● Population:_____________________________
_______________________________________
● Climate:_______________________________
● Important Products:____________________
_______________________________________
________________________________________
_______________________________________

Check out this postcard to learn about an important landmark:

Flag of _____________ Very Important Citizen

Name__________________

The colors of the flag are

____________________ Born: ________Died: ________ Description of Landmark: _______________________________________
____________________ Famous for_______________ _____________________________________________________________
____________________ _______________________ ___________________________________________
_______________________

Animal Trading Card Read the brochure below to learn about the great people, places, and things that make ___________________ special.

_______________________
is an animal that lives in
_______________________.
Here are some fascinating
facts about it:___________
_______________________
_______________________
_______________________
Copyright ©2001 by Scholastic Inc. ISBN: 0-439-32320-7

Spectacular Sport Fabulous Food Final Fact Super Resources

This sport is especially This delicious dish is often Here’s one more thing I want to Check out these books, web sites,
popular in___________________: eaten in____________________: tell you about ___________________: and resources to learn more:
 Instant Personal Poster ● Teaching Guide

W
elcome to Instant Personal Poster: Cool Country
Report! This lively, prompt-based poster was designed
to help even your most reluctant writers succeed at research
and reporting. The fun activities presented here enable kids to build
a long list of essential skills including reading for meaning, collecting
and organizing data, writing to convey information, editing, drawing,
and spatial reasoning. And here’s more good news: This customized
Instant Personal Poster Sets: Cool Country Report © Scholastic Teaching Resources

learning tool is a perfect way for students to share ——and celebrate

——their newfound knowledge, either in the form of oral reports
or a bulletin board display.

MEETING THE STANDARDS
Turn to this Personal Poster to reinforce the national
language-arts and social-studies standards. The Cool
Country Report is an excellent way for students to
address these benchmarks, among others:
WRITING
1. Gather and use information for
research purposes.
2. Use the stylistic and rhetorical
aspects of writing.
3. Use grammar and mechanical
conventions in written compositions.
4. Use the general skills and
strategies of the writing process.
suggest research strategies. If you like, post a completed
poster on the wall for kids to refer to when they get
stuck. Suggest students develop and edit their writing
and drawings before they commit finished versions to
the posters. Encourage them to print legibly and to
decorate the poster with markers or crayons to make
their finished products especially eye-appealing.
TIP: Decide on a reasonable
date for completing the posters and
set aside a little time each day to
work on them so kids don’t get
overwhelmed.

SOCIAL STUDIES BUILDING BACKGROUND

1. Understand selected attributes of countries
around the world.
2. Understand selected historical developments of
countries around the world.
INTRODUCING THE POSTER
Pass out a class set of posters and take a “visual
stroll” through t"he text. Point out the various prompts
and think aloud how you might go about crafting
responses. Invite children to ask questions and
Make sure your students have plenty of
opportunities to gather information about their
countries. Organize an “Around the World” learning
center stocked with preselected titles and/or visit the
library as a group. Demonstrate how to use your
classroom computer to gather facts via the Internet
or cyber encyclopedias, such as Encarta. Then,
assign each student a block of computer time to
explore web sites and collect data.
Teaching Guide ISBN: 0-439-32322-3. Poster and teaching guide written
by Liza Charlesworth; illustrations by Teresa Anderko; designed by
Holly Grundon. Copyright © 2001 by Scholastic. All rights reserved.
 Using the Poster
Area or Region
Have kids do research to establish the area, region,
or continent their country is a part of. (Explain to
students that some text and reference books use the
term continent while others favor region or area.)
Ask kids to shade in the appropriate bubble as well
as to show where the country is located on the small
world map in the upper right-hand corner.
My Map
Invite kids to use reference books to sketch an accu-
rate map of their countries in the box. Remind them
to develop a map key and to include as much detail
Instant Personal Poster Sets: Cool Country Report © Scholastic Teaching Resources
as possible, such as the capital, important cities,
bodies of water, mountains, farming regions, etc.
Just the Facts…
In this section, kids locate and fill in essential
information about their countries—from the current
leader to its outstanding physical features. If you
like, take this opportunity to build online research
skills by challenging kids to use the Internet to glean
the very latest data.
Greetings From…
This drawing component gives visual learners the
chance to shine! Challenge kids to choose one of
their countries’ most important landmarks to draw
and then describe on this picture postcard. If kids
prefer, they can also download an image from the
Internet to paste into place.
Flag
Students will have fun using this template to draw
the flag of their country and list its colors.
Very Important Citizen
Challenge kids to do research to find a person—
living or dead—who changed the course of history
in their country or is famous for an invention, skill,
or special talent. Ask kids to draw—or paste a
downloaded image—of that individual in the frame
and then write a quick description of his or her
incredible contribution.
Amazing Animal Trading Card
Have students do research to learn about an exciting
animal that inhabits the country they are studying,
then fill the trading-card template with a great picture
of that creature along with some fascinating facts.
Travel Brochure
Students will enjoy customizing this travel brochure
to celebrate the people, places, and things that make
their countries super special. There are no rules for
this section except that each child should include an
array of well-organized facts and pictures that “toot
their country’s horn” and communicate its
uniqueness.
TIP: It’s a good idea to have an assortment of
travel brochures on hand for kids to use as models.
Creative Quickies
● Spectacular Sport and Fabulous Food:
Have kids research and share information about a
sport and food that is especially popular in their
country. Encourage drawings!
● Final Fact: Invite kids to share one more fact
they found particularly fascinating.
● Super Resource: Teach good research and
reporting skills by requiring kids to list the
books, web sites, and resources they used to
complete their poster.
Assessing Student Work
Students will complete the posters in a variety of
ways. Use this checklist to assess their mastery:
● Were they able to gather accurate information?
● Did they use multiple resources, both in print and
multimedia formats?
● Was their writing clear and effective?
● Did they use proper grammar and spelling?
● Did they proofread their work?
Taking It Further
● Build important oral literacy skills by asking
each child to share his or her poster with the
class in a 10-minute presentation.
● Use the completed posters to create a bulletin
board or wall display for students to visit at
their leisure.