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I love pinterest. It’s an amazing place to find ideas, and this geography game idea has to be one of my new favorites.
“Where in the world is Mr. Sprinkle?”
Really, the game is a fun quiz. After the teaching has been done, I get out the sprinkles, place a few sprinkles on some of the places we are studying, and then call out “Mr. Sprinkle is in [fill in the blank].” For instance, “Mr. Sprinkle is in Rome,” “Mr. Sprinkle is in the Mediterranean Sea,” “Mr. Sprinkle is in the North Sea,” “Mr. Sprinkle…”—you get the idea.
The kids find the sprinkle and eat it! So awesome! Of course, you could do this with any candy or treat. But, as the original poster suggested, a sprinkle is not a lot of sugar to feel guilty about feeding your kids. They won’t ruin their lunch with this game. And, as an added bonus, the maps stay relatively clean. (But you could always put them in a sheet protector if you are concerned about smudges.)
Another fun part about this game is that Middlest can play and learn, too. If she seems stumped, I give her a clue by the color of the sprinkle. “Look for a blue sprinkle.” And that helps her to find it more quickly.
Most of all, the quiz becomes something to look forward to rather than a dreaded exercise. I love making learning fun, and this is a definite winner!
We love geography: maps, globes, atlases, all of it! But we’ve definitely taken our geography to new heights with our Egypt study. It’s one thing to make a map, but it’s something entirely different to get to eat your map after you’ve made it!
We’ve been working on learning the map of Egypt. Each day we’d review the different places on the map that I wanted them to remember. The first couple of days, we do this with the Teacher map that includes the names and locations. We finished the week reviewing with a blank student map. Finally, I finish the map work by having each of the kids label a blank map. I got the idea from The Jobe Journal to actually create labels for the kids to stick onto the map, since neither of my kids are really at the age for filling out blanks on a map. This has worked great! They love “stickers” and it gives me a good idea of what they are remembering.
But then came the real fun. I baked some cookie dough and got out the frosting.
We frosted the entire cookie first. Our desert or “Red Lands” were decorated with colored sugar sprinkles. The kids (with a little oversight and direction) frosted the fertile flood plains (or Black Land), the Nile River, and the Nile River Delta. I had originally planned for our pyramids to be chocolate chips, but it wasn’t until after we finished frosting our cookie that I realized I was out of chocolate chips. After a brief moment of panic, I remembered that I did have tootsie rolls. So I pinched off tootsie roll and shaped it into pyramids for the kids to place on their cookies.
After all that hard work, I was barely able to get pictures before the kids were begging to “eat Egypt.” Let’s just say, this is one map they won’t forget soon.
Our geography is finally coming to a conclusion. We got really derailed with the arrival of Littlest, which took us much further into the summer than what I expected. But it’s been a fun journey, and no one has complained that our tour has taken a few extra months.
We just wrapped up South America with a study of Peru, Brazil, and the rainforest. Expedition Earth has a fantastic rainforest diorama to construct, but it was just a little bit more than what I’m capable of tackling right now: deconstructing and organizing the school room, preparing next year’s plans, trying to salvage my milk supply for Littlest, plus the “normal” every day that Life throws at ya’.
We’ve had a ton of fun with this app. It comes with lots of games and puzzles that feature animals of the rainforest. There are also tons of articles about the rainforest and its plants and animals. Another big favorite were all the photos and videos of the rainforest.
Memory Match
Then we let the kids watch an episode of I Shouldn’t Be Alive that featured a couple of guys lost in the Amazon rainforest.
The kids also learned the different layers of the rainforest: emergent layer, canopy, understory, and forest floor. It would have made a terrific notebooking page, but I tell you, I’m just having trouble getting to everything right now. So we studied from our app and a few pictures. Maybe another day we’ll be able to make our diorama and notebooking page.
Finally we turned our binders into bound books. Since my pro-click binding is editable, I can add the last pages once they are completed. (But I needed the kids binders to get ready for next year, so this helped free up some space.)
North America is our last continent. We’ll cover Canada and Mexico. Then, conveniently, our church is putting on a music camp and performing a musical about America. It will segue perfectly into the tail end of our tour. It’s been a fun and memorable journey. Nobody’s asked me, but our geography study was definitely the favorite part of MY school year!
TimeMaps, produced by Knowledge Quest, is both timeline and map in one product.
There are several components to this product. First, TimeMaps are grouped by topic.
Ancient China
The Rise of the Roman Empire
The Fall of the Roman Empire
The Rise of Islam
European Exploration and Discovery
The Black Death
The Atlantic Slave Trade
In flash format, a series of maps highlights the different changes within a topic. Watch the Roman Empire swell in its might (and see the rise and fall of the Persian and Greek empires in the process.) Interactive links and icons provide more information on what is happening on the map. Questions are also provided to guide your discussion with your student.
Another element is the map timeline, accessed through the “TimeMaps of World History” link.
By clicking on different dates on a timeline, changes around the world are indicated on the map. Again, this map includes links that provide more information when you hover over them. “What’s happening in the world” provides a brief summary to read to the student.
Lesson plans and activities are also provided, but I found that these were aimed largely at older children, probably dialectic level. Assignments included creating a timeline or researching a topic and writing an essay.
My kids loved to see the places that we’ve been studying in our geography. And they loved to “uncover” the facts on the maps through the interactive links. Though we’ve already enjoyed this product, I can’t wait to put it into context with our Tapestry of Grace studies. From ancient history to the Enlightenment, these maps and eventually the activities will be something we’ll use for years! I was also thrilled to find maps and information on the Maya and ancient Mexico as well as Mesopotamia within these products, especially since these places and time periods are often difficult to find information and activities for.
My husband was also impressed. He’ll be taking a class on Islam in the fall for his ThM in apologetics, and the Rise of Islam has a lot of information to provide him with a background for that class.
I love this product; it is just as cool as it looked like it would be and is definitely worth the price. Topics can be purchased individually for $9.95 or as a set for $44.95. Visit the site for more information and to watch a brief video touring the product.
You can also read more reviews about TimeMaps or Knowledge Quests MapTrek series at the Schoolhouse Review Crew.
Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.
I’ve been playing around with our schedule over the last several days, and I think I finally have our summer the way I want it. So, here’s what we are up to and how we are fitting it in (while still managing to have lots of play time and pool time).
First, I’m planning on a four day school week, saving the fifth day for field trips and bigger projects. Then, I split up our math and phonics similar to a block schedule. In other words, we don’t do both everyday but rather do each every other day. Day 1: Math; Day 2: LA; Day 3: Math; Day 4: LA. This way, we get two lessons of each every week—good enough to maintain what we’ve learned, not so much that we don’t get a summer.
Now, for all of the fun I have planned!
Science/Nature Study
Geography (continuing with North and South America)
Art and Art Appreciation: Monet (and lots of drawing)
Music Appreciation: Bach (it’s a long story for another post)
Again, I wanted enough to cover the topic and give us an activity for each day without robbing us of the summer-time memories. So, we will do one of these subjects each day: four subjects for four days.
As we head into the countries of Europe, I’m picking up the pace a little. For one, I’d like to complete the continent before Baby gets here. Two, there are a lot more countries in Europe to cover (I had selected three from each continent, but how do you cover only three European countries?). So, instead of a two week study, we’ve shortened the next few to only one week, but still packing in a ton of fun.
First, we learned our geography and completed our notebooking pages. The Greece flag was a little tricky for them, with so many alternating stripes. And it wasn’t perfect on the first try, but a little white paint covered the mistake rather well.
We read about Yannis in our Children, Just Like Me book. As always the kids were most interested in what his religion was (Greek Orthodoxy) and what he ate (ham souvlaki in a pita wrap).
Now, my husband and I are pretty big fans of Greek food. So I took this as the perfect opportunity to capitalize on my children’s interest.
We found a casual Greek restaurant and embarked on the experience. What do you order the kids at a Greek restaurant? Well, I didn’t want them to get confused when we studied Italy, so I stayed away from pasta. Instead, we ordered a couple of appetizers: pita bread with tzatziki sauce and chicken souvlaki (essentially, grilled chicken on a stick). It was the perfect kid’s meal! They loved it all, and my son was even brave enough to try a bite of gyro (pronounced “Year-o”, per the menu).
Greece really made an impression on my son. He loved the food, quickly learned to find it on the map, and decided he definitely wanted to go there some day. In the meantime, he’s asked if he can mail Yannis one of his Bibles. I love getting to know the heart of a child!
One of the things I have loved about this year is the notebooking we’ve done for our geography study. At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t sure how well it would go, since most blogs and sites recommend lapbooking for littles and notebooking for older kids. After all, both of mine could barely write. But I made the decision based on two facts.
1. I know myself. We did some lapbooking last year for K4, and though we all enjoyed it, it was a lot of work and a lot of planning. In the long run, I knew lapbooking our studies would be something that I would never get to (kind of like scrapbooking). The lapbooks are so cool! And we may still do a couple every now and then, but for a regular activity I didn’t think I had the stick-to-it-tiveness.
2. We made about 5 lapbooks last year, and I also put many of their worksheet pages in a notebook for them to show off and enjoy. Can you guess which of those gets the most traffic? Ironically, it’s their notebooks. It’s only every now and then that I see them pull out the lapbooks. Believe me, if I’m going to put the time in, I want it to pay off long-term with lots of use.
So notebooking was my choice for this year, and here’s what I did to make that choice successful for my young kindergartener and preschooler.
1. I printed off a number of pages before the school year: all of our animal study pages and “Children Just Like Me” pages. Then, I filed them in the back of my notebook. The geography pages I print off at the beginning of each 6 weeks—all of them. These pages I keep filed in their notebooks. Then, on the assigned day, I simply have them pull their notebooks out and turn to the correct page. The advanced prep has kept me from procrastinating and made the process pretty seamless.
Notebooking NigeriaNotebooking China's flag
2. Our notebooking is a combination of coloring and narration. Most of the blanks on the pages I fill in what they have told me. For instance, on our country notebooking page I typically fill in 3 blanks: the continent, the capital city, and the population. They tell me the continent, and I write it in. I tell them the capital and write it in; then, I show them a picture and have them tell me where to place the star (for the capital city) on their picture of the country. Last, I tell them the population and write it in (my son is very impressed with populations and large numbers), and they color the country. On the page for the country flag, I read the facts and guide them as they color the flag the same as the sticker inside their passport. For our “Children Just Like Me” page, my son writes the child’s name, age, country, and city (copying from our book); then the rest of the page is narration. Both kids recounts to me facts about the child’s family, favorite food, religion, hobbies, etc., and I write in what they remember.
Notebooking Flag of South Africa
Notebooking Children Just Like Me
There are two other elements to our notebook this year. On the second week of our study, we include a study of the country’s animals as part of our “Fun Friday” activities. We make a flip-book using the templates from Expedition Earth. I cut envelopes in half for pockets, glue them to blank sheets of paper, slide the flip-books in place, and insert the pages into their notebooks.
Arranging flip-book, largest to smallest
We’ve also classified animals this year: mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, amphibians, and arthropods. I pre-cut the pictures of the animals from our country (provided by Expedition Earth) because the lines are so tight that it makes cutting difficult for the kids. They tell me the classification, and I help them glue those animals in their proper divisions within the notebook.
Notebooking animals by classification
The result? They love their notebooks! I love the simplicity! And we have a record of what we’ve covered as well as a place to practice skills like copywork and narration, coloring, organizing, and sorting.
