Intro to Geography - Maps

After our introduction to geography and landforms, we started an exploration of maps. M is already familiar with maps. She has a US map that she loves to play with and locate where members of our family live, we talk about maps and navigation systems when we find directions to go new places, and maps are used on several of her favorite TV shows, like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

I got a few books from the library about maps. Our main set of activities was inspired by the book "Me on the Map." In the book, a young girl creates maps of her room, house, street... all the way out to the whole Earth. We read the book at bedtime a few nights before attempting the activities so she would be familiar with the story.

We made something similar during our Space Unit to show M her place in the universe. We looked through this "Where Do I Live?" book, reviewed some maps of different places in our community (trail map for a local park, campus map for a local college, map of the local science center buildings, and an exhibit map from the children's museum).

After reading the book again, we took some paper and a marker up to M's room and she helped me draw a map of her bedroom. She pointed out all of the pieces of furniture and I drew them on the map. Then she went back around the room and pointed out where she was standing on the map.

We went back downstairs and she helped me draw a map of our house. She started to lose interest at this point, so we stopped there.

On another day, we talked about larger maps - like our country and the world. M got a really neat interactive globe for Christmas (I bought it from Costco, but it can also be found here - Smart Globe). We talked about how the Earth is really a sphere, but it's not very convenient to carry around a spherical globe. I took a grape (any round food would work) and cut it in half to show her how a globe can be represented as a flat map. We looked at several different maps in one of her library books and talked about how maps are flat representations of portions of the world.

The next morning I put out a basket with these Around the World Finger Puppets and the box of Around The World Flash Cards that I bought on Amazon. The flash cards are so cute! The front of each card has adorable illustrations depicting the flag, a person, and landmarks/cultural items from the given country. The back of the card has a world map with a star showing the location of the country. M tried to match the finger puppets to the cards (pretty successfully, in my opinion!), then used the maps on the backs of the cards to locate where on the globe her new finger puppet friends lived. It was so neat to see her pull it all together!

She spent the rest of the morning playing with the finger puppets. There were 6 pairs of puppets, so she played matching games, made a house for them, and put them to sleep in their basket.

Here are a few other cultural activities we did throughout the week:

Water Color Paintings 
M chose two pages to paint from this National Parks Coloring Book - a coral reef at Biscayne National Park in Florida, and a mountain scene from the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in NC/TN. We had a long conversation about different types of habitats while she painted. My husband and I actually snorkled at Biscayne National Park this past September, so I told her about the fish (and shark!) we saw while we were there.

Cosmic Kids Yoga
These videos are great! We did this "Squish the Fish" episode where we rode in a hot air balloon to the beach to explore a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean.

Blueprints and Construction Sites
My husband works as a Project Manager for a commercial construction company, so we are fortunate to be able to follow the progress of a new cancer center his company is building. M has visited the jobsite on multiple occasions, but I made sure to point out all of the blueprints hanging on the walls and all around the office. My husband pointed out what they were currently working on so she could see it on the "map" before watching the work in person. (We usually watch from the sidewalk just outside the jobsite. We have a good view and don't have to worry about the safety issues - although M does have her own hard hat and safety glasses if we go on site.)

Fun, fun, fun!! I'm finishing up some continent cards and a continent map to get ready to introduce the continents! So far, so good :) Don't forget to check back with us as we continue our Around the World Adventure!

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Intro to Geography - Landforms

I did some preliminary research (obviously) about introducing geography to a preschooler. I was thrilled to realize that Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now offers a free Montessori Geography Album when you subscribe to her blog. That was a great place to start, and I found some other terrific blogs (like Counting Coconuts, Imagine Our Life, and The Hands-On Homeschooler) with great ideas for geography.

To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure how interested M would be in learning about landforms. I was intrigued by the idea of teaching landforms, and I really liked the way landforms were described and could be paired off as opposites to compare and contrast (like a lake is water surrounded by land, while an island is land surrounded by water). There were so many hands-on ideas for building landform models, so I thought that would be a good place to start.

We started with a very basic tray with three glass jars - one filled with soil, one filled with water, and one empty (filled with air). I also included a map of the United States, a toy compass, and a set of animal cards (some that live on the land, some that live in water, and some that can fly).

We talked about what geography is - the study of the Earth (land, water and air), and the people, plants and animals that live on the Earth now and in the past. We talked about how a map is a tool that is used by people who are studying the world. (She insisted on getting out her magnifying glass to examine the map.)

I gave her the pile of animal cards, and showed her how to sort them based on where they might live.

Next, I showed her the set of landform 3 part cards (I downloaded a free set here). I laid out all of the pictures on her mat and gave her the stack of labeled cards. She matched the cards while we talked about what the landforms looked like and how they were similar and different from each other.

We wrapped up the day by making landform snacks inspired by this Living Montessori Now post. We used graham crackers and yogurt with blue food coloring instead of icing. M made a couple of the easier landforms (like the lake), but got frustrated trying to spread the yogurt. I made the rest, and had her try to guess what landform I was making. She then matched all of the graham crackers with her landform cards before we ate our snack. She loved this activity, and was so excited to show my husband the pictures and tell him about the different types of landforms when he got home from work. (Note: My printer ran out of ink when I was printing these cards and I wasn't able to get more before we did this activity, so we were missing the isthmus card.)

M had so much fun learning about landforms, I decided to follow up the next day with another landform activity. We reviewed her 3 part cards, and then she helped me make some homemade play-doh. I split the dough in half, and we dyed half of it brown (equal number of drops of blue, red and yellow food coloring), and divided the rest into smaller balls to dye rainbow colors.

We took the brown dough back to the playroom and I gave her a small baking pan and a container of blue water beads. We talked about how the brown dough would represent land and the blue beads would represent water.

We flipped through the stack of landform cards, and M picked the first landform to model. We started with an island, then she wanted to make a lake. She especially liked pouring the water beads into the tray to fill the "water."

Next we made a strait, followed by a system of lakes.

At this point she started to lose interest in the landforms and just wanted to play with the play-doh and water beads. She liked poking holes in the dough and filling the holes with beads. I gave her the rest of the colors of play-doh, along with some containers and transfer tools (scoops, spoons, tweezers) and let her play as long as she wanted.

We had so much fun with these activities! Make sure to check back to see what we're up to next as we continue on our Around the World Adventure!


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Around the World

Our family loves to travel. M loves looking at pictures of different places around the world, and she has become more interested in airplanes ever since my husband started working toward his pilot's license. I also wanted to work with M more on letters and letter sounds. It all seemed to fall together perfectly to plan an "Around the World" version of a letter-of-the-week curriculum. As I started brainstorming, I decided that I didn't have enough topics to make it all the way through the alphabet. I'll take a break around the time our new baby is born, and we'll wrap up the alphabet with an "All About Me" theme. Some of the letters are a bit of a stretch (so many "A" continents!), but here's the preliminary plan:

Intro - Basic Geography and Maps

Letter A - Africa (extra Egypt activities)

Letter B - Biomes

Letter C - Continents

Letter D - Desert

Letter E - Europe (extra Ireland / St. Patrick's Day activities)

Letter F - Flags

Letter G - Grassland

Letter H - Habitat

Letter I - Ice (Antarctica)

Letter J - Japan and Asia

Letter K - Kangaroos in Australia

Letter L - Lakes

Letter M - Mountains

Letter N - North America

Letter O - Oceans

Letter P - People of the World (Diversity and Cultures)

Letter Q - Queens and Royalty

Letter R - Rainforest

Letter S - South America

Letter T - Tundra

*NOTE: I will update this post with links for each theme as we go. I will not be going in alphabetical order. I am trying to group the themes by category (all of the continents first, followed by biomes). I'm trying to roughly follow a similar order that Montessori schools would use to present letters, but it won't be exact. You can see more detail on how Montessori programs introduce letters here. M is already familiar with most of her letters, so I'm not overly concerned with the order we go in.

Each day we'll do some basic activities to prepare for the day (look at the calendar, check the weather, etc.). The week's activities will be based on the theme of the week and the letter of the week. I will be using mostly Montessori-inspired activities, including assembling continent boxes. I'm only planning on about 2 hours max of planned activities, and then supplementing with play time and field trips. I'm also going to start using "workboxes" that I'll fill with quiet activities that M can work on independently. I'm hoping that I can get her in the habit of being able to amuse herself for short periods in preparation for the new baby.

I hope you'll join us on our journey!

Oh, Baby!

I have been very inconsistent with blog posts lately - and with good reason! We're so excited to have another girl coming this spring! We have spent a lot of time over the past few months talking about babies and how the new baby will affect M. She is thrilled to be a big sister!

She almost always has at least one "baby" with her at all times. She loves telling us about all of her children and how she takes care of them. She puts them to bed, feeds them (only milk for babies!), and carries them around to soothe them when they are crying.

She comes with us to all of my midwife appointments, and likes to listen to the baby's heartbeat. We talk about how my weight is changing and why they monitor my blood pressure at each appointment. The midwives are fantastic with her, and ask her if she has any questions too!

I bought a fetal doppler to listen to the baby's heartbeat between appointments, and M got a real kick out of listening to it through the headphones.

I found a video on YouTube (The Miracle of Human Creation) that M watches over and over and over. She likes watching what's happening to the baby in mommy's belly. We talk about what's happening in the video and how the baby changes over time as it develops. It gives us the opportunity to talk about a variety of topics - the purpose of the heart, nerve cells, DNA, how cells divide, etc.

I'm really excited that she got a Nabi 2 for Christmas so she can stop stealing my phone to watch her favorite video!

Babywearing has been a big part of our lives since M was born. I started out wearing her in a Sleepywrap (similar to a Moby - now called a Boba Wrap) and a BabyHawk Mei Tai. As she has gotten older I upgraded to woven wraps (Didymos and Dolcino are two common brands), which are much more versatile and comfortable for larger babies and toddlers. We talk a lot about how mommy will carry the new baby in wraps. M was very jealous when we visited my cousin and I carried my cousin's new baby in one of her wraps. I have given M lots of opportunities for big girl cuddles lately so she knows she's not being replaced. I may even need to learn to tandem wrap so I can occasionally carry both of them!

There are big changes in our future, but I hope to continue to pursue our goals in homeschooling M. My personal goal for this year is to try to become more consistent with my posts so I can keep track of everything that is happening in our lives. I hope you'll stick around to see all of the fun we're having!

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