Brazil and Rain Forests ~ Lesson Plans & Links

The first week in our study of Brazil we focused more on the country itself and during our second week we learned more about rainforests. Brazil is the largest country in South America ~ almost half of the land in the continent is within the border of Brazil {pretty amazing, when you think about it!}.

The Amazon river also flows through the country of Brazil, making it a great opportunity to read the book Afternoon on the Amazon by Mary Pope Osborne with all of the kids and use the Rain Forests companion guide in our study. You can view the other countries that we’ve studied from South America on my geography page.

Week 1 Layout

Monday

• Review song about South America from Geography Songs {see words below}
• Use atlas and globe to locate Brazil; read in the atlas about Brazil
• Read one of our books from our bookshelf about Brazil.

      South America

Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia,

Ecuador, Peru and Chile and Bolivia,

Uruguay and Paraguay, Brazil and Guyana

and Suriname ~

These are the countries of South America.

The French have French Guiana.

The British have the Falkland Islands.

Brazil is the biggest country and

Chile is the longest.

Tuesday

• Review geography song
• Learn {and review} some terms: rain forest, river, jungle, pampas, grasslands, wetlands, plateaus, and plains 
• Reading together book on Brazil {Amazon River} ~ Afternoon on the Amazon 
• Filled out the map of Brazil using our notebooking page. We also shaded in the rainforest area.

 Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Wednesday

• Review geography song
• Read more of Afternoon on the Amazon 
• Story from Around the World in 80 Tales
• Learned about the flag of Brazil and completed our notebooking sheet

Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Thursday

• Review geography song
• Spent time on the National Geographic Kids ~ Brazil page. Watched the video together and read through the facts and information on their site.
• Children Just Like Me book and notebooking page
• Reading together book on Brazil ~ Afternoon on the Amazon 

Week 2 Layout

from McKenna’s rainforest diorama

Monday

• Quick review about what we covered last week.
• Read chapters 1-2 from Rain Forests {companion to Afternoon on the Amazon}
• Completed the Layers of the Rainforest and Where in the World are Rainforests? minit book from The Great Kapok Tree lapbook
• Independent reading from shelf

Tuesday

• Read chapters 3-4 from Rain Forests
• Completed rainforest mammals, amphibians and birds minit books from The Great Kapok Tree lapbook
• Independent reading from shelf

Wednesday

• Read chapters 5-6 from Rain Forests
• McKenna put together a diorama of a rainforest. We had some 3 dimensional rainforests animals and she wanted to make one to go along with what we were learning. It wasn’t super-detailed, but she did {most of it} on her own. I printed off a scene from the rainforest and she used the picture to line the box and then added some branches and vines along with the animals to decorate it.

Thursday

• Review geography song
• Read chapter 7 from Rain Forests
• Put our lapbook pieces on a cardstock sheet to add to our binder.
• Summarized one of our reading books and copied summary
• Added our notebooking pages to our binder and stamped our passports!

Books We Used

Resources and Websites

• Time for Kids ~ Brazil
• National Geographic Kids ~ Brazil
• Homeschool Share ~ Lapbook for Brazil
• Homeschool Share ~ The Great Kapok Tree lapbook
• Enchanted Learning ~ Label the Tropical Rainforest
• Easy Fun School ~ loads of links for Brazil. I haven’t checked them all out, but there are bound to be a few that will be helpful!