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On Safari in Kenya ~ Our Lesson Plans

Our travels to the Eastern coast of Africa started with Kenya. We learned all about the Great Rift Valley and the heights of Mt. Kilimanjaro, figured out how to sing the chorus of Jesus Loves Me in Swahili, drew lots of fun pictures of safari animals, put together a fun diorama of a savannah, read some great books together, and visited some great websites to learn more about the great country.

    Week 1 Layout

    Monday

    • Introduce East Africa song about Kenya from Geography Songs
    • Use atlas and globe to locate Kenya
    • Talked about the size of Kenya 
    • Independent reading ~ pick a book from the shelf to read

    Tuesday

    • Review geography song
    • Learned {and reviewed} some geography terms: lake and valley, highlands, lowlands, equator,  and savannah
    • Learned about the Great Rift Valley and Mt. Kenya
    • Learned about the flag of Kenya using our notebooking page

Flag of Kenya thumbnail

     Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

    Wednesday

    • Review geography song
    • Talked about the climate of Kenya ~ on both sides of the equator, wet and dry seasons, snow on top of Mt. Kenya
    • Visited National Geographic for Kids: Kenya site
    • Independent reading

    Thursday

    • Review geography song
    • Tried to sing Jesus Loves Me in Swahili ~ well, the chorus at least!

Yes, Jesus loves me. Yesu amipenda
Yay-soo ah-nee pen-dah [3x]
The Bible tells me so. Biblia ani sema
Bee-blee-ah ah-nee she-mah

Mapping Kenya  Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

    Tuesday

    Wednesday

    • Review geography song
    • Used Draw Write Now to draw a lion and a cheetah
    • Learned about the baobab tree ~ the one that looks like it is planted upside down!
    • Independent reading

    Thursday

    • Review geography song
    • Laurianna worked on a fun diorama project of a savannah. We found some great 3D animal punch outs that she put together and then made up a ‘habitat’ for them

African Savannah diorama Africa diorama

    • Added our notebooking pages to our binder and stamped our passports!

Resources and Websites

Books We Used

Learning About Nigeria {Week 2}

The girls were a little more excited about Nigeria this week because they realized the Compassion child we support lives very close by to Nigeria. This week we focused more on the book The Village of Round and Square Houses. The book actually takes place in the neighboring country of Cameroon, but we had fun trying to recreate a round house similar to one someone might live in the Central Africa region. For some reason, collecting twigs and sticks was a HUGE excitement for the kids. :)

Monday

  • Reviewed geography song of West Africa
  • Reviewed things we talked about last week: flag of Nigeria, geography terms {rainforest, plains, plateau, gulf}
  • Completed a mapping activity of Nigeria and surrounding countries {see below}

Nigeria map Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Tuesday

  • Review geography song
  • Read The Village of Round and Square Houses by Ann Grifalconi
  • Created a round house like the ones in the story. We collected twigs/sticks and made a miniature version of the house.

Wednesday

Thursday

  • Review geography song
  • Tried saying some phrases in Nigerian Pidgin {English is the native language of Nigeria, but many speak a form of Pidgin {a mix of native languages and English}
  • Reading together book on Nigeria {from our bookshelf}
  • Stamped our passports and we’re packing our bags for a trip to South Africa next week!

Resources and Websites

Books We’re Using

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Learning About Nigeria {Week 1}

Our study of Africa continued with the country of Nigeria. For some reason, the kids really enjoyed the book picks that we had for Nigeria. Master Man: A Tall Tale of Nigeria by Aaron Shepard was read so many times I could almost recite the story to you all…

Monday

  • Introduce new song about West Africa
  • Use atlas and globe to locate Africa and Nigeria
  • Talked about the size of Nigeria {about twice that of California}
  • Independent reading {pick from the bookshelf ~ see carousel below}

Tuesday

  • Review geography song
  • Learn some new geography terms: rainforest, plains, plateau, gulf
  • Learned about the flag of Nigeria and completed notebooking page
Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Wednesday

Thursday

Resources and Websites

Books We’re Using

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Exploring Egypt: Mummies and Pyramids

This week we wrapped up our study of Egypt and used the Magic Tree House Mummies and Pyramids as our primary guide for the week. Each day we read a few chapters and then worked on a few minit books that I found to go along with the chapters at Homeschool Share.

We didn’t put together an entire lapbook ~ more like a lappage. The minit books were just glued onto a piece of cardstock and then we put them into our geography folders. We also had fun making a mummy of our own with a Dollar Tree doll and rolled bandages. Our apple experiment wrapped up this week {can I just say – ‘yuck’} and our results were definitely not what we anticipated…I’ll have to post more on that later!

Here’s a look at what we did this week:

Monday

Tuesday

  • Read chapter 6 in Mummies & Pyramids ~ learned about different types of pyramids, how pyramids were built, and also about the Great Sphinx
  • Had fun building our own pyramids with 1″ blocks and also legos.
  • Worked on minit book for Pharaohs and Book of the Dead

Wednesday

Thursday

  • Read chapter 8 & 9 in Mummies & Pyramids ~ read all about King Tut and the many famous treasures that his tomb held {and how long it took to find his tomb}.
  • Minit book about Great Sphinx
  • Uncovered our apple mummies and compared our results to what we thought would happen.

 

Resources and Websites

  • Homeschool Share ~ Ancient Egypt Unit Study. We used different lapbook pieces to make up our lapbook page
  • Living and Learning ~ great pictures for making your own Barbie mummy!!!
  • Newton’s Apple ~ science experiment to see which concoction will best mummify apple slices
  • King Tut One ~ puzzles, mazes and trivia for kids
  • Odyssey Online ~ resources on the people of Egypt, mythology, daily life, death/burial, writing & archeology
  • Neferchichi ~ TONS of great links and resources for ancient Egypt
  • Pyramid of Man ~ some great games and links for Egypt

Books We’re Using


Exploring Egypt: Week 2 {Mummies and More}

This week we narrowed our focus a little bit and used the book Mummies & Pyramids by Mary Pope Osborne along with our studies. The highlight of the week? Mummifying apples! The kids were so excited to do this experiment ~ but we’ll have to share the results with you next week!

Monday

  • Quick review about what we learned about Egypt last week
  • Sing our geography song: Northern Africa
    Learn about the flag of Egypt {worksheet below}
    Independent reading {pick from the bookshelf ~ see carousel below}
Click on thumbnail to download pdf document

Tuesday

Wednesday

  • Review geography song
  • Read chapter 3 of Mummies and Pyramids ~ Egyptian religion. Talked about the different gods and goddesses {Horus, Osiris & Isis, Bastet, Thoth, and Bes}.
  • Visited King Tut One site ~ kids spent some time playing games and exploring the site

Thursday

  • Review geography song
  • Read chapter 4 in Mummies & Pyramids
  • Visit Time for Kids site on Egypt
  • Mummified an apple – fun science experiment!! I’ll be sharing more details on this later with you all.

Resources and Websites

Books We’re Using


Exploring Egypt: Week 1

We started out our tour of Africa by studying the country of Egypt. Honestly, it can be rather daunting planning a ‘quick’ tour because there is so much to do and cover. From pyramids, to mummies, to pharaohs, and the list goes on. Needless to say this isn’t an exhaustive list and there will be two more weeks to follow this post

Monday

  • Introduce new song about Northern Africa
  • Use atlas and globe to locate Africa and Egypt
  • Mapping activity
  • Independent reading {pick from the bookshelf ~ see carousel below}
Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Tuesday

  • Review geography song
  • Learn about some new geography terms: delta, desert, oasis
  • Learned about the Nile River: originates in Ethiopia, flows South to North, talked about the Nile Delta
  • Watched Mystery of the Nile IMax movie on Netflix ~ available to watch instantly

Wednesday

 

Thursday

Resources and Websites

Books We Recommend