We moved to a different continent now. We are going to be in Asia the next several weeks if you care to join us. We'll definitely be sending you postcards from each country we visit. :)
This week we read a couple of library books to get a feel for the continent before we just delve into the countries. I kinda like doing this even if it's just for myself. I get a big picture of what's happening in general and then we can zoom in for a little closer view of each individual country. Maybe that's just my perfectionistic tendencies shining through, but it's all good. We learned that Asia has the highest elevation in the world (I know you know that one.) and the lowest low (Dead Sea). We looked at the different habitats that we'd encounter there and we studied Marco Polo as our explorer.
To help the kids remember where each major habitat or landform is located, I came up with a creative smaller way to do a salt dough map. I copy a map onto cardstock to make it a little sturdier. Then, I'll usually draw some loose boundaries for areas of desert, grassland, forest and rain forest, etc. (I know it's not completely accurate, but at least it gets the general idea across.) Next, the kids will make a collage using 3-D material for each habitat. On this map of Asia we used golden paint with salt mixed in for desert, small cut strips of green construction paper for grassland, split peas for forest, craft moss for rain forest, sea salt for the tundra and then we made our mountain ranges out of leftover popcorn. We did this for Africa, and as we were wrapping up the countries in the continent, I asked L something about the different habitats and L said the map helped him remember. So, I thought I'd pass that on to anybody and see if it helps your family too.
I also thought of a way for the boys to review their countries that we are studying for each continent that I hope will help them remember the country's location. I'll let you know. I print out one map as a go-by with all the countries' names and each country we're studying colored a different color. This is the one they will look at each time this activity is in their workboxes. On another blank outline map, I have up at the top of the paper the country names and what color I want the boys to color that country. Their job is to study the original map and then color as many countries as they remember. I will give them this activity two or three times a week and by the time we're done with the continent, I hope they can remember the location of all the countries we've studied. I do this same type of thing with E, but she has a map of all the countries in that continent and she has to be able to remember all the countries and their location by the time we're done with that particular continent. But she doesn't color hers, she writes in the name of the country where it belongs.
The kids actually {gasp} played TOGETHER (yes, all four older children) this week without any bickering and complaining on their own volition!!! Can we have a Praise the Lord!!! One afternoon we still were not done with school, but I got out the playdough for Betty and then the other three came right up and decided they were going to get involved too. It was a playdough creating session of highest degree. I was so giddy that I just let them play until the got it out of their systems. It was so much fun to see them using their imaginations together. Here's the only picture that they would allow me.
Cakes for the "Mayor"
