Summary: South America Unit

D had tremendous interest in learning about South America sometime during the month of June and we explored our continent box, worked on maps and read a ton of books on South America.  I had snapped these pictures then, but have managed to write a post only now!

Working with the puzzle pieces

Labeling the countries

One of our favorite books

We happened to find a sugarcane around this time in one of our local stores and integrated tasting it as part of this unit!

This is her replica of the Machu Pichu ruins using the Cubes

We tasted the goodies we received from Argentina as part of the cultural exchange

We summarized what we learnt.  D drew the pictures and I wrote what she dictated from memory.

We worked with out South America Toob and D's favorite is the poison dart frog!

This is her version of the Amazon river flowing through the rainforest

We received this set as part of the exchange, which include the tea and the special mate cup and the bombilla

We tried drinking the tea from the mate and it was horribly bitter!  I don't know whether it was supposed to be that way or may be I should have done something different.

So then we switched to our regular cup and used the bombilla to sip the tea and read some poetry!

Our Continent Boxes - South America

It has been long since I posted on our Continent Box Series.  So up next is our South America Box.

The Montessori Color for South America is pink.  I cut some pink scrapbook paper and decorated our South America Box.  As mentioned before in this post, these are IKEA cardboard boxes.

Here is a map of South America that I printed of Google and laminated.

I made some images of foods and kids of South America.  Again, I know these would interest D, that is why I made these.

Foods

South American Kids

Also in the box are included some South American Rainforest Animals.  I also printed off these cards from somebody's blog.  Can't remember where, would love to link if someone can help!

Important Landmark cards.

Landmark

A Paper doll from Brazil.  So far D loves these paper dolls, one of the best purchases for the continent boxes.

The next group of items are from Argentina.  If not for the generous exchange with this family in Argentina our South America Box would have been kind of empty!

Some interesting plant samples

Beach Shells

Figurine and clay pottery

Currency

Yerba Mate Tea with the Mate and Bombilla

Argentinian Flag.

I still need to make a Flag pin map for South America.  We also have tons of books on South America and the Amazon that D really enjoys, I will post about that soon.

Hope you enjoyed looking through the contents of our South America Box!  To see more posts in this series click here!

Our Continent Boxes - Antarctica

This post is about our Antarctica Continent Box and its contents.  In my previous post in the Continent Series about our North America Box, I had posted about the kind of box I used.  Since the Montessori color for Antarctic is White, this box was perfect!  The front of the box has some White glitter scrapbook paper.  We also cut out some Antarctica animals and decorated the box with those.  All the pouches for the cards were made using scrapbook paper.  Nothing fancy, just a container to hold to the cards.

While deciding the contents of the box I had to keep D's interests in mind.  She is at the sensitive period for details on things.  So if I included pictures of whales in the box, then I better have details on each whale, how one differs from the other and so on.  I learnt so much while creating materials for this box!  Now I am well equipped to answer most of D's questions!

There are two major areas of focus on the materials - Animals and Scientists.  Here are our animal cards.

Here the focus is mainly on Penguins, Seals and Whales.  I also included a bunch of birds and crustaceans that are related to the food chain Antarctica. The Penguin cards are from here.  I made the rest using Google and Wikipedia. When I searched through our collection of Toob Animals, I realized that we did not have the Penguins or Ocean Animals Toob.  Our local Michaels did not have it either! So  for now we just have one penguin and one seal figurine!

From here, I got this interesting book called "Who's Eating Who?" that is a lovely read for my 5 year old.  It discusses a lot of details and gives an insight into the Food chain in Antarctica. I put the pages in a folder enclosing them in page protectors.

From here (made by Honey @ http://mondorfment.blogspot.com) I got this wonderful printout of an Emperor Penguin's lifecycle.  D loves "March of the penguins" and so these cards are perfect for her.

I printed out a map of Antarctica and some interesting pictures showing the South Pole, Ice bergs, Cruise ships, etc.

For information on Scientists I made this booklet from this website.  I got the idea from here.

As an add on to this book and to provide some activities for D, I made this paper doll with the different scientist clothing.  It has all the layers a scientist would wear in Antarctica. I got the images from here, colored and laminated the pieces.

D loves cars and enjoyed these Antarctica transportation cards that I made for her.  I got the details from here.

I have the map and the paper doll stored in a folder like this.

I made got this post card and stamps from Google.

I also created a few Artwork done in the Antarctica theme.  D especially loves the "Ship stuck on Ice" one!

No study of Antarctica would be complete without some info on Snow.  Here is a snowflake that we used during this art project we did.  The drawing of Snowflakes was done by D and added to the box! I made this easy reader booklet for her with some information on Snowflakes, how it is formed and its types.

For the books that we used for this study refer to this post.

I have a series of activities planned and I will post about those as we get them done.  We might add those to the box too.  Hope you enjoyed looking through our Antarctica Continent Box.  To take a peek at the other boxes, click here.

Our Continent Boxes - North America

Its been a while since I posted.  We've been busy working and progressing steadily in all areas.  I've been busy making quite a few new materials, definitely another post!  For now, I thought I would post (show off :)) the contents of our North America Continent Box.

One of the awesome ideas from the Montessori world is the Geography box.  It is the coolest too! I've been dying to make these ever since I heard about it!  In the 3-6 age range, when everything is about rich sensorial experiences, what better way to introduce Geography than immerse the children in a wide variety of cultures!  Geography boxes provide an awesome way to begin the experience.  The child gets to hold, feel, taste items from the various continents and get introduced to the various cultures.  I also love the fact that everybody's continent box will be unique.  Each box can be tailored to suit the needs of their children's interests!

Before I get into the details, I want to mention what I did for the boxes.  I wanted a sturdy but inexpensive option.  I looked and looked and finally found these awesome, good sized paper boxes at IKEA.  They had the various colors that were needed for the boxes, but they come in packs of two of the same color.  Then I would end up buying 7 of these and what do I do with the extra box?  So, I decided to get 4 packs of the white boxes and do my own decorations.

Here I present our first box, the North America box.  This is the heaviest box and the fullest.  We owned most of the items in this box the rest I got from the cultural exchange we participated in.

Here is our box.  I just pasted some orange (Montessori color for North America) paper on the front of the box and top of the lid.  I decorated it with some stickers we received as part of the cultural exchange.  I love how it turned out, simple and no sweat!

These are the flags that we own, just Canada, USA and Mexico.  I also made some cards for the flags that can be used for 3-part work, but for now we have plenty to explore in the box, so I left it out.

We have the North America Map that I got from here.  The Mexican map was from the cultural exchange.

In the box are the portraits of D and M that were made by an artist at the Pike Place Market.  We visited Seattle earlier this year and this was one of the memorable things that we did there.

Postcards that depict people, landscape, animal or artifact, that we've collected over the years from various places we visited across USA and Canada. We also received a couple from the cultural exchange.

Art by some of the artists local to the area depicting places or people.  We bought these at the places we visited.

Currency, coins and stamps.  We got that little girl holding the tiny coconut at Punta Cana when we vacationed there with D.

Some items from Mexico.  We got the Mayan, the Mayan Calendar and a replica of the Chichen Itza when we visited there.  The rest are items we received from the cultural exchange we participated.

These items are Canadian, things we collected when we visited a few places there.  From left to right, Inuksuk, CN Tower that changes color, Totem Pole at Stanley Park in Vancouver.  We received the little Canada Lite flashlight from the cultural exchange.

We got this Tlingit doll when we visited Alaska.  The little leather pouch holds some Muskox fur from a farm in Alaska.

Dream Catcher and a few goodies we received from the cultural exchange.  The forget-me-not seeds are from Alaska to represent the state's flower.  We are planning to plant these next spring.

We got these little replicas of brown and black bear, the totem pole, mammoth ivory fossil and a little gold rush stone (fake!) from Alaska.

Paper dolls of Alaskan and Mexican children.  These are available at Amazon.

The US presidents and US animals flashcards, I got from the Target Dollar Spot.  The wooden US  puzzle map is from the dollar store.

Some Travel brochures and maps from the places we've visited.

Some books we own that will be used for research when D is ready to get into the details.  I got these at the various sales at our local library for really cheap.

I made a set each with pictures of the landmarks, food, houses and people (especially children) of North America.  I was sure to include, pictures of places we visited together so D can get a kick out of those! Same for food!  D loves the pictures of Starbucks coffee and pizza!  I made these pictures by getting the  images off google, will be unable to share these, sorry!

We received these Spanish flash cards, pictures from Mexico and some Spanish music (not pictured here) from the cultural exchange.

I also have the candies and food items that we received from the cultural exchange, but I've put those away for now.  We will use them later when we get into detailed studies of the continents.  Also, as you can see, I haven't included the beautiful letters we received from the cultural exchange in the box, the reason being that this box is full and already quite heavy.  When we get into studying each country I will surely pull those letters out.  

Hope you enjoyed this installment of our Continent Box!