Geography Studies

All the talk over at the 4real forums lately has got me thinking. I had so many plans to teach the girls about the different continents of the world, especially focusing on the people and how life is for children living in those areas of the world. I didn't get nearly as far as I thought. I was frustrated with myself, for not living up to my own expectations. I'm trying to remember that sometimes things don't happen like we plan. So, I've decided to just continue these studies into next year.

But as I look over this past year, I think it might help me to feel a little more accomplished if I post as much as I can about what we DID do. I had posted a few times on what we were doing this past Autumn. This is a continuation of that:

We started with Africa. The girls did the map on the right, first, highlighting the borders and the waters of Africa. The map on the left has Morocco colored in, to show that this was a country that we were studying, since we couldn't study every African country.

The girls also colored a close up map of Morocco (on the right, below), and glued that along with the country's flag and discription to a page for their notebooks.
And using this book below....
they drew a picture of an animal that lives in Africa. The drawings are simplistic and somewhat "cartoonish", but still fun and turned out well.The craft for Morocco was these Khamsas. They had fun making these. The girls have fun making anything "artsy".

(Skylar's is above and Alexa's below)
And of course we read many, many stories about Africa......fiction and nonfiction. A couple of the books we used are pictured below.
The girls really enjoy learning about people of other countries and how they live, especially the children. The stories and the hands on activities are their favorite parts. Social studies and geography have become one of their favorite subjects. Mine, too. :-)

TTFN

~Tina