The World Around Us is a series of educational coursebooks designed to:

— broaden a child’s understanding of the world by providing essential vocabulary, concepts, and cognitive frameworks in the Russian language;

— spark interest in reading both literary and encyclopedic texts in Russian among children ages 6–9;

— strengthen students’ language skills through extensive, structured lexical and grammatical practice.

Topics are selected with the age, curiosity, and interests of young learners in mind. Linguistically and ethnographically complex themes alternate with creative, open-ended tasks that encourage exploration and imagination.

Assignments that involve interviewing parents—native speakers of Russian—help strengthen language connections within the family and allow children to engage with meaningful cultural material rooted in family history. Children learn how their parents studied at school, what they were interested in, how their grandparents dressed, and how everyday life in the past differed from today. These tasks also naturally involve parents in homework through small but meaningful research-based activities.