World Pin Map

I love the montessori style pin maps! My children work with them all of the time. It is a material that definetly helps them to be able to learn the names of the countries and locate them better. You know what else I love ? I love FREE montessori materials. I snagged this work from Montessori Print Shop here is the link http://www.montessoriprintshop.com/. The map that is avaliable with the pin labels is black and white, but you can purchase a colored one if you like or just color it so it can still be totally FREE. Here is how it looks when the work is completed.

Besides that it is FREE, the best thing that I like about the labels is the color coding and the picture of the continent right on the back of the label.

We definetly needed some geography inspired work around here. THANK YOU MONTESSORI PRINT SHOP!! We really do appreciate this:)

Linking this post to Geography/History meme hosted by All Things Beautiful at http://homeschooljournal-bergblog.blogspot.com

Making Landforms With Model Magic

                                                                             

Canada Day

Once a month DJ receives a country to study from Highlights it is in the Top Secret Adventures Club. He enjoys waiting on the arrival in the mail, and quickly gets to the work. This time the country was Canada, I quickly hid it from him because I wanted to surprise him. I had forgotten it had came until Friday he let me know that he knew it was Canada Day. DJ was pleased when I showed him his package and of course he got busy.

 The monthly kit comes with a book about the country, a puzzle, and an activity guide.

 In order to solve the clues you have to put the puzzle together first.

 This book club is a must have for geography lovers like DJ. Also the materials have been awesome to add to our continent boxes.                                                   

Australia Day

In honor of Australia Day the children and I had a small discussion about the continent of Australia. We looked through our childrens' picture atlas and discussed some of the animals that live in this continent. The children learned that there are a lot sheep in Australia and so we also sorted sheep from cows. We reviewed where Australia is on our continent map puzzle . The children also placed the Australia flag on our World flag puzzle. Finally we made our own flags of Australia.

                                                                            
                                                                                 
To see other children learning about geography and history please visit History/Geography exchange hosted by Children Grow Children Explore Children Learn

Surviving In The Rain Forest

Ken has a survival project that is for school due this Friday. Over the weekend she worked very hard on this project. The location she chose was the rain forest. Kens' teacher told them that they had to choose five items that she will use to survive the conditions of that location. Also Ken has to illustrate the five things along with an explanation of how she would you them.  The items Ken used to illustrate her items were found through my scrapbooking materials, a sticker collection I have that shows animals in the rainforest, and some images from the internet. I helped Ken by reminding her of the geography and climate of the Amazon rain forest. Ken  already had background knowledge of this wonderful place. Ken also used various books that I made avaliable to her. Ken did a fantastic job with this project. I love how she used the materials. The last thing Ken has to do now is give an oral presentation to her class. She has been practicing this since her completion of her bulletin board. Here are some pictures of the process and the final result.

  Ken decided she would make the layers of the rain forest for her backgound.

                          Here is the understory and the canopy layers.

 Sorry about the photo. This is the background complete with the layers if you look closely Ken has added rain  below the clouds.

 Now she is adding the animals  that spend most of their time in the canopy. During this part Ken initiated a discussion about food chains and food webs it was very interesting how she was applying her prior knowledge in every step of this project.

                                    Photos of the emergent level. The middle of the board.

                                                   The left side of the board.

        
                                                       The right side of the board.

                                                      The canopy.

The understory is where Ken decided to do her illustrations of the five items she would use to survive the conditions of the rain forest, she also added animals that you would find in the understory. This photos shows the fishing pole, and the thermos. To keep it short she said she would use the fishing pole to fish for food and  to get berries from trees she couldn't reach. The thermos as a container to hold the water so she could boil it.

Saplings and the lighter. The saplings she would use for shelter and also collect water from it. The lighter she would use to start a fire.

Garlic Ken said she would use to protect her body and her shelter from insects, and also eat if she became sick.

                                                     The completed project.

                                     
Come and share your adventures in time and space at History/Geography exchange hosted by Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.

Some Geography and History

                          Labeling the continents on the world map puzzle.

                                  Pin punching the continent of South America.

                        Working with landforms.

 We have been  reading the book Corn is Maize By Aliki . Aliki tells the story of corn: How Native Americans farmers thousands of years ago found and nourished a wild grass plant and made it an important part of life.

 Here is dry pouring with popcorn. Doing activities like this help the younger children to gain a better understanding of the book and shows them a different type of corn.

 Tweezing kernels from Indian Corn. Franklin now can name this type of corn. Tweezing is a great fine motor skill, again it helped make connections to the book.

 To see other children doing geography and history lessons pop over to Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.                                                                             

There's A Map On My Lap

 We have been reading some really good books that has inspired the children to do more work in the cultural area. There's A Map on My Lap (All About Maps) By Tish Rabe, this book is part of  The Cat In The Hat Knows All About That series. The other popular book is Homes Around The World by Max Moore, it is published by DK Readers and is beginning to read level 1.

                                                                      

                                                                                  
          This is Franklin working with the World Puzzle Map with control map.

                                                                       
DJ is looking at photos of people and places from North America. These card have information about the picture on the bottom.

                                                                                     
                                                Here is a close up of two of the photos.

                                                                           

                       Jamesha is looking at pictures of homes from different continents.
                                      

                                                                     
                                                  A close up of the pictures.

                                                                      
 On the back I glued a picture of the continent so the children can locate on the continent map puzzle where the home on the picture is from,also  they may want to sort the pictures by continent.

                                                                           
To see other children who are doing geography and history activities please visit Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.

How A House Is Built

       This week we have been reading  How A House Is Built  By Gail Gibbons. We have been reading a few pages at a time, the story is well written but I would lose the childrens' attention quickly due to some concepts that need to be talked about like the word Architect if we would read the book at one sitting. Of course the children have questions along the way so we are pacing ourselves I am still learning how to use amazon to get the picture of the book. So I took a photo of the book.
                                                              

               
This dollhouse and the paper house is some of our work for our studies on houses. The paper house holds the parts of the house cards.

                                       
The children label the house with the cards. The cards have the parts of the house colored, so the child knows to match the part of the house to the part that is colored. I have attached velcro so they can do this. Also the tape on the dollhouse is a control of error.

                                           
                                              Here is a close up of the parts of the house cards.

                             This is a language work on the shelf. The child matches the tools.

                                            This is how the work looks when it is completed.

                                                                         
  Please visit Children Grow,Children Explore,Children Learn  to see how other children are studying Geography and History.