Continent – Africa [1] (Map Works)

As promised, I’d like to share how we go about our Continent study of Africa.  The first part is all about maps. 

Map of Africa DIY Puzzle

Since I don’t own a Puzzle Map of Africa, I decided to make my own out of papers :).  I printed two copies of the African map in a cardstock.  One copy for the control and the other one is for the puzzle.  I colored the countries using crayons (or you can use colored pens) then cut it in different shapes. 

He immediately spot Madagascar (his favorite African country LOL).

  And finished the rest all by himself with a little assistance from me. 

 

He loooved this activity! He enjoyed working map puzzle and it was a big hit!  I will definitely do the same with the other continents!

And of course, he couldn’t resist putting the African animals on the map :)  It’s just cute how he placed the dinosaur in the water.  He said that they’re long dead now so they belong in the deep ocean. 

Map of Africa and Pin Flags

Again my objective here is point out that each country is represented by a flag.  So here as seen, he worked on the pin flags which I made. 

 

        

More Africa updates coming… please stay tuned.

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African Flags (Printable Cards)

I prepared this printable for our Continent Study of Africa. 

The file consist of the following:

• 55 pin flags
• 55 3-part cards of African flags
• 55 mini-flag cards for Map works and matching with landmarks
• 55 flag cards that you can use to match country name with capital city

Instructions and how to use are included in the file. Feel free to check it out in Flags of Africa.

On Writing Letters

My son loves to write letters. He’s been doing it since last year. Though I am not sure how did it all started, but he has a thing of putting his thoughts and ideas in a piece of paper.  He might got this from me as I usually love to write and take down notes on pads and stationeries. Here are some of his written notes that I’d like to share:

A letter to Santa last Christmas.  I was surprise to see this in our tree a few weeks before Christmas. 

  This letter is for Maria, a Spanish girl from his class.   It reads “Dear Maria,  I’m your bestfriend forever. Come to my house.”

 

And this one, he made this for me last Friday.  He did this all by himself, I never asked him to make me a Valentines Day greeting but he did it on his own.  What touched me the most is when he wrote “For My Momy”.  I love it :)

 

Now that he is into writing letters, his interest in spelling has greatly increased. That’s why we’ve been having spelling for the past few days.  I’ll talk about it soon on a separate post.

Have a wonderful Valentines Day everyone!

 

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Layers of the Earth (Free Printable)

This topic is somewhat advance for my 4 year old.  But you see last week, he watched an episode of  The Backyardigans about the “Old Gushie” a volcano about to erupt.  The Backyardigan friends travel down into the Earth to stop a boulder from plugging Old Gushie before it can break the Earth into half.

That’s how we ended up learning about the Earth’s layer as he was so curious of where the hot liquid lava from the volcano came from.  Materials I used were the Layers of the Earth Nomenclature Cards which I downloaded from The Helpful Garden, Layers of the Earth fact book which I made and can be downloaded for FREE (see link below) and an illustration of the Earth’s layers (colored papers). 

Here’s how my fact book looks like.  Sorry for the blurry image, it’s been so  dark lately and I find it difficult to have a decent macro shot.

Here he is working on the 3-part cards and fact book. 

 

If you’d like to have a copy of the fact book, you can click the picture below to download it for free.

We also made  Sun and Earth miniature using a Styrofoam balls. We ended up hanging them in his room when we’re the paints dried up.

I was too tired to prepare a playdough for this lesson so I just relied on the craft papers for the demonstration.  But I promise to do it next time as I know he would love to create the layers using playdoughs. 

As seen on the picture he’s labeling each layers. I always include a writing exercise in every activity we have to improve his handwriting.

And later on decided to write in “Chinese” characters as what he described it LOL. 

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The Solar System

We made use of our old learning materials in our Solar System activities.  These planets were printed 2011 and I totally forgot where I got it from.  In case you own the file or knows the link just leave me a comment so I can add it up. 

Here, Mavi is putting the planets in order while singing his Solar System song learned in his Montessori school.

We started using the fact book which I made.  My son loves learning the difference between the planets and always compare Jupiter (windy and stormy planet) to our place LOL.

Here’s where you can get the Space and Solar System pack which I made.  Aside from the Solar System it also includes Astronomy Cards and Fact Books.  

        

            

This coloring sheet of the Solar System was taken from The Helpful Garden (I love this blog!). Books we used:

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Planets on Strings

I love how this little project turned out, though initially I wanted to paint the planets like what we last year but my son insisted that we should use his oil pastels.  This simple planet mobile is so easy to do and would make a lovely decor in your kids room if done correctly.

First, I made circles using my compass and cut them to be used as our planets in the mobile. I made different sizes to make it more believable.

Afterwards, we color our circles on both sides.  Mavi used his oil pastels as he is fond of them.  I am not really a fan of pastels as they can get really messy with the hands, but my son loves them, probably because it produces more vivid color than crayons.

Now each of the planet will hang from the paper plate using a string.  We attached each string using a sticky tape and position them accordingly on the plate.  To add more effect, the strings should have different lengths.

Here’s our finished product :)  It turned out to be a plain simple mobile, it would have been better if we really painted the circles to make them more eye catching.  However, the little one was so happy with his work.  He was really proud of what he had accomplished.  We placed this in our hallway and he would sing his Solar System song whenever he passed by under it :)  So cute.

Don’t miss out my Space and Solar System Cards! We used them as well during our Solar System lesson, will talk about it on my next post :)

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Space and Solar System Cards (PRINTABLES)

My son had a wonderful time learning about planets in their school.  Because of his “hangover”, he still wanted to do a lot of “planet” related activities when gets home.  So I made him these nomenclature cards and fact books and sheets so we can can look into space matters more deeply.

The file includes the following:

• Solar System Nomenclature Cards
• Solar System Fact Book
• Astronomy Nomenclature Cards
• Astronomy Fact Book
• Title page for each card set (optional printing)
• Make-believe tour guide sheet for each planet.  We pretended to travel through space using our throw pillow spacecraft and used these sheets as a guide to visit each planets.

You can get the file from here.

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