Here is such an AWESOME opportunity to complete your Continent Boxes! Montessori Print Shop is having 9 days of giveaways celebrating their 9 years. I would love to win this one……just this one and I am gonna be reallly really happy!!!! lol If you want to have a chance, check this link: Continents giveaway.

 

Good luck to all……someone is going to be really happy!

I think this is going to be our last post about our Africa continent box! It has been such a wonderful experience, not only for Pinky but for her mommy, too! Also, the fact that daddy went to South Africa makes our learning much more interesting. I will try to make this a not so long post but I don’t promise anything! So, make sure to grab a cup of coffee or tea and get ready to be inspired (I hope so!!! lol)

African flags

Our map of Africa, printed from here with the countries’ flags (link below for the flags). The flags attach to the countries with magnets. I don’t pretend that Pinky learns the flags for each country now. We just talk about the different flags, colors and designs, and maybe get to identify the one from South Africa and Egypt. So far, she knows the flags from USA, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Haiti.

I wrote numbers behind each flag and on each country on the map so we could match them by numbers. The size of the map is four 8x11 size pages; however, I think a bigger size would do it better since there are some small countries on the west that the flags doesn’t fix so well, as you can see. This is a fun activity to get kids interested about the different flags and their countries. Additionally, we have flashcards bought at Target (dollar section) inside the box in an envelope.

 

Egyptian mask

This is such an awesome activity!

This was a mommy-daughter craft since it is complex for Pinky to do it by herself. However, we had such a great time making it together! The outcome was BEAUTIFUL! It really looks as we bought it from a very expensive souvenirs store. (jaja!) Here is the link if you want to try it with your kids. Instead of newspaper, tissue paper and glue, we used dried gypsum paper we bought at AC Moore craft store. Pinky loved to wet the paper (she mostly played with the water jaja) and gave it to me to cover the mask. To hold the mask in position to the cardstock I used tape and then my hot glue gun to make sure it stayed in position (you know, Pinky will be using it to play around). We had to let it dry for a night and the next day she painted everything with the gold paint and I made the lines with the blue paint (TEAM WORK!….well she really got tired of painting the mask plus mommy wanted to paint it perfectly lol).

What do you think???? Isn’t it great???

The finished product was kind of heavy and big for Pinky’s head. We are keeping it as an art exhibition on our Continents bookshelf.

 

Coloring art

This is an easy and fast activity. I printed animals prints on white cardstock with an animal picture. She colored the prints and then glue the animals pictures on top of their prints. Here we talked about the animals skin differences: stripes, patches, spots. I think it will look great in a frame! I have the links saved in my Pinterest Board (link BELOW!).

DIY Necklaces

This was such a fun activity that Daddy joined us after he came from work. I think we loved the relaxing moment caused by lacing the beads and just having a nice conversation about our day.

Nice jewelry!

 

The goodies from Daddy’s trip to South Africa

Well, daddy loves to buy! Jajaja

 

If you are interested about putting together a Continent Box for Africa, below are some awesome ideas from other bloggers. We were so lucky that Daddy had the opportunity to visit Africa last November. Also our Asia box (Daddy had a trip to China) and North America box (I’m from Puerto Rico, Daddy’s from Haiti, we lived in Dominican Republic and now USA, so we have a few souvenirs from those countries, plus Daddy had a trip to Cuba, and we went to Canada for the holidays vacation) are very well covered, too! However, the Europe, Australia and South America boxes need LOTS of help!!! For these boxes, I keep looking at Goodwill, Craiglist, garage sales or friends generosity . Sometimes I am lucky and find things at different local stores, like a flute from Peru! Just keep your eyes open, be patient, creative and have fun!

 

My Pinterest board: Continent Box: Africa. It has a recompilation of different activities around the web. We tried some and saved other for future studies.

Continent boxes: Check them and get inspired!

1. Our very own Continent box- visit our post here and here for more activities to include to your Africa Continent study plus a FREEBIE (we are sharing our own Animals cards, Elephant 3 part cards and instruments cards for your enjoyment and PERSONAL use! There are NOT perfect but help with the job!
2. We don’t need no education –she used green mini folders to save the cards, Love it!
3. Homeschool in the hills –many great printables to add with links!
4. Living Montessori Now- great post summarizing different continent boxes with lots of links. If you want to know more about Montessori and get inspired, make sure you follow Deb’s post!
5. Noor Janan Homeschool – love the World felt map! Check her link: Africa: is not a country. It has lots of resources about Africa.
6. A bohemian education –beautiful way to decorate your box on the outside.
7. What did we do all day? she added photos from their Daddy’s trip to Africa. This reminds me about doing the same….great keepsake!
8. Discovery days and Montessori moments –saved the cards inside mini green folders.
9. Just thinking –love the ideas of swatches of fabric for matching.
10. La Paz home learning –she decorated each one of the boxes. The final outcome have so much personality: beautiful!
11. Like a bird –pictures of each one of the boxes.
12. Counting coconuts –beautiful and well organized Continent bag!

 

Printables:

1. Paper Sphynx
2. Expedition Earth: Discovering God’s Animals from Confession of a Homeschooler (free)
3. Free printable Africa bingo cards- I used the flags for our Flag map above. Fold in the middle so the flag is on the front and the name of the country on the back. Then add a magnet in between and tape around the corners. You won’t be able to see the magnet which gonna be inside the mini-flag. We can use the flags for our map or for a Bingo game!
4. South African money worksheets- maybe for older kids?
5. Africa map –here’s the web-site I used to print our Africa map to use with the flags. I used 4 papers but maybe one a bit bigger would be better!
6. Nuttin’ but preschool has a free Africa lesson plan with lots of ideas to try.
7. Africa outlined map
8. Ancient Egypt and Unit lapbook from Homeschool share (free)
9. Visit the Homeschool den if you want to expand your Africa learning into Egypt. There are several post about the theme. She also made Egyptian masks and there are a few printable links.
10. Montessori Print Shop- if you don’t have the time to make your cards, here you can buy them. Their materials are wonderful! They have Flamingo 3-part cards for free.

 

Uff! Kind of a LONG post!!! Sorry about that!

Did you make a Continent Box????

Let us know!

We’ll love to check it out!

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Wao, it has been a long time since we started studying about Africa. With the holidays preparations, the ballet recital, our Christmas vacations to Canada and then the New Year’s cold, we didn’t have time to finish our African exploration. Here’s our last post about our Africa box.

However, better late than never! So, what’s in the box?

The envelopes have the flags, landmarks, animals and instruments cards. Our Africa box is kind of full thanks to Daddy and….MOMMY, of course!!! lol

Goodies- souvenirs: Daddy brought these from his trip to South Africa.

Wood spoons, Mandela’s quotes cards, Apartheid’s museum magnets and pens, necklaces, candles, keychains, Cape point’s magnet.

 

Landmarks cards

I made a few Africa landmarks cards (has a picture on front and a description on back), Postal cards and magnets Daddy brought from his trip.

 

Currency

Daddy brought some money making sure we’d have a representation of each one of the Big 5. We save it inside this beautiful Africa-shaped box.

 

Animals of Africa

I made these cards to match our plastic figurines. We are still needing a representation of a Meerkat, hyena, gnu and African wild dog figurines. And I forgot to make a card for the Pelican and Warthog! If someone need the cards, for personal use ONLY, please!, here’s the link. Also, Montessori Tidbits has some animals cards for free.

Parts of an Elephant cards

Here’s Pinky making sure her elephant figurine has all the correct parts…lol I made this Elephant cards (here’s the link but please just for your personal use and sorry they are NOT perfect). However,  Montessori Print Shop has beautiful ones plus a booklet.

Parts of a Flamingo cards

She checked the flamingo, too! The flamingo cards are from Montessori Print Shop for free!

 

Books, games, puzzles, music Cd

 

Instruments of Africa cards

I made these cards to complete ones I found at Montessori Tidbits for FREE . Here’s the link (Please these are for your PERSONAL use!). Just a few instruments to compare/contrast the ones we know.

 

Math

When Pinky was just a toddler, I made these cute Elephants out of a stencil and foam. We loved to sing the 10 elephants song balancing on a spider web, but in Spanish! Then, my mom came for vacation and made giraffes to join the elephants. Yesterday, we found them inside our Africa box. After singing the Elephants song (in Spanish, of course!), and Pinky improvised a giraffe version of the song , we did some math practice. I love the moments when our brain lights up! jajajaja

First, some addition! (the cards are from the Dollar store!) The number eight card is part of a few number cards I made with cardstock a while back! RE-CYCLING!!!

 

Then, some subtraction!

Oh my!!! She is REALLY excellent!

Hard work pays off!!!

Now that we are having a cold weather plus the flu season is picking up, I think that learning about our World is going to be lots of fun!!!

So, where are we going next???? Oops, wait, I still have to post about our art activities…..after all, Pinky is just 4 years old and to get messy is a must!

 

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