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’.
So, I opted for this rainforest app from Britannica.
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.
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!
