South Africa Country Study

We have friends who visited South Africa a few years ago, so the girls remembered hearing about some of the different places that they had visited and also seeing pictures of their trip ~ making this a fun country to review and study.

Along the way we learned that South Africa is bigger than Texas and California combined, practiced a little Zulu, got confused with the three different capitals {Cape Town, Pretoria, and Bloemfontein}, and discovered that South Africa actually has another country within its borders {Lesotho}.

You can view the other countries that we’ve studied from Africa on my geography page.

Week 1 Layout

Monday

• Introduce new song about Morocco from Geography Songs
• Use atlas and globe to locate South Africa
• Read one of our books from our bookshelf about South Africa

Tuesday

• Review geography song
• Learn {and review} some terms: grasslands, plateaus and cape
• Independent reading from bookshelf
• Filled out the map of South Africa using our notebooking page

 Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Wednesday

• Review geography song
• Tried speaking a little Zulu
• Talked about South Africa’s Big Five: buffalo, elephants, leopards, lions and rhinoceroses.
• Independent reading

Thursday

• Review geography song
• Time for Kids website
• Reading together book on South Africa {from our bookshelf}

Week 2 Layout

Monday

• Review geography song
• Put together our Africa GeoPuzzle
• Learned about the flag of South Africa

Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Tuesday

• Review geography song
• Read together one of books from bookshelf
• Listened to the South African National Anthem

Wednesday

• Review geography song
• Story from Around the World in 80 Tales ~ The Cheetah’s Cubs
• Explored National Geographic Kids site

Thursday

• Review geography song
• Summarized one of our reading books and copy summary/dication
• Added our notebooking pages to our binder and stamped our passports!

Books We Used

• National Geographic Kids ~ South Africa
• Time for Kids ~ South Africa
• PBS Kids ~ My World South Africa
• Mr. Donn’s page on South Africa ~ lesson plans and links
• PBS Kids Go ~ South Africa page
• Africa Kid’s Page ~ games played in Africa along with some great links for recipes and other information
• South African children’s page from the President {interactive} ~ has downloads and links to places in South Africa along with historical information about the country
• I am an African ~ You Tube video
• SouthAfrica.net tourism page
• Make a mask and see a Dogon dance
• Photos of South Africa
• Wildlife of South Africa