Africa Unit Study

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 It happened a week ago.  Or maybe it was two weeks ago. Anyway, it doesn't matter.  Basically, I was scrolling through Instagram, when an eye catching story had me at hello.  I have to give social media it's due credit, because without it, I'd be a lost puppy in the world of homeschooling. Those beautiful images, book spreads, and art projects truly inspire a person to build a plan! And that's exactly what happened. 

If you've ever seen Beautiful Feet books mentioned, you would notice unique stories that aren't readily available in your local big bookstore. But they tend to have a content meant for passing on culture and history. So months ago, I started keeping my eye on a few titles and have slowly worked on gathering things for our Africa study.  It's a country rich with culture, ecosystems, and vast animal life. 

I'm finally there. I have most of our collective items prepared. Just waiting on Amazon to deliver the last few bits. This study is going to be epic... like our Marine study last year. Okay..maybe not quite as many books. But definitely more crafts. If there's one thing to say about African people, it's their artisans and tribal crafts that stand out!

My first go to when starting to plan this study was Gather Round Homeschool's Africa Unit. It's detailed enough that it can literally be a month of geography alone. I purchased the middle school bundle so I could incorporate all ages, but we will be using it more of a guide than doing each and every assignment planned. Gather Round also offers an Africa Cookbook which we purchased as well. 

(Girl Scout Thinking Day circa 2013...Africa table was the bees knees!)

The nice thing about having a ready made guide like this are the curated links for videos and book lists if you're not one to hunt for them.

 

So here are the resources I've gathered for our Unit Study. 

Books                                             

Where is the Congo?

Where is the Serengeti?

We All Went on Safari

The Honey Bird

Sundiata: Lion King of Mali

Mama Panya's Pancakes

The Marvelous Mud House

Safari Photicular

Swahili Dictionary                                                    

Africa 

Games 

10 Days in Africa

African Savannah

Mancala

Sunrise Safari

Professor Noggins Wild Safari

Crafts

Color with Congo Stencils 

Build a Mud House with clay

Design and build a paper Ndebele Hut

Make beaded jewelry 

Activities

Listen to congo drums 

Watch videos     

Cook and eat African Food

African Lion Anatomy 

Build a Grasslands Scene 

Study African Animals

Giraffe Anatomy Model

Dress in Dashiki Clothing

In all of my excitement, I had to create some paper resources for us to use. Listed above and linked, we have Safari Animal Fact Cards and the African Lion Anatomy Pack! To go with these, I've also made some Notebooking Pages that I'm offering you, for FREE! Click in picture to get yours!

I estimate this unit to take us about 2 weeks, then we will be starting regular school work! Have ideas and resources to share with us? Message me! 

Summer Strewing

   

 It's the Summer break and we are all doing our best to stay home. This pandemic has everyone going a little stir crazy.  While the kids can play with Lego, Watch TV, Read, Play outside... they still need to explore something new. So I decided to grab up some books on topics that they are interested in and lay them out. There isn't a lesson plan or required anything. Just simple Strewing.  

Here are some of the Strewing tables I set up. The kids are always in and out of this room anyway, so it's a great place to put out interests! 

We started off the Summer looking at genetics. The kids were very curious about Punnett Squares and Traits. It was a fun little unit with a super cool DNA lava project. 

When your son wants to try Blacksmithing.... I honestly don't know if this will go anywhere, but at least he can read about it!

June was full of Star Wars Movie Marathons. Even though a few of us have seen the movies multiple times, we still have questions. I found some super fun books and games to go with that. 

My son was also interested in Sailing. He wanted to know about sailing boats and maps..of course that's a different type of map, so we found a few book varieties. 

My middle child is currently obsessed with Wolves and Canada. I gathered some books on both and created her section. She is heart set on traveling there one day. 

I absolutely love the 4th of July! We decided to listen to some Rush Revere while cleaning out the school room and have all of these great books out for browsing. I'm sure some will reappear during time period studies. 

I think to finish out the summer, we will be strewing some Rocks & Gems, and Bugs! 

You can find most of these pictured resources from Amazon, Thriftbooks, and Simply Fun Games!