Africa Activities and Resources

Africa is over! We ended up spending four very loose weeks on it-- the first two, I was focused on teaching about Africa, and then the last two weeks saw me so overwhelmed with other life stuff that I gave up covering any new material and just kept the activities we already had out for the boys to tinker with. We definitely didn't go as in-depth as we did with South America, but I'm satisfied with it as an intro to Africa.

Books

               

                

The Lion's Share
Very clever little book on division and multiplication, with some manners on the side. The kids thought this story was hilarious!

Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock

Chameleon, Chameleon

The Lonely Lioness

Dr. de Soto Goes to Africa

How the Ostrich Got Its Long Neck

I'm pretty sure we read a few more African-themed books, but I returned them to the library before writing the titles down!


Movies



Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears
Great quality collection of African folk tales, two of them narrated by James Earl Jones. Great exposure to African art styles and music.


        

Madagascar 1 and 2

The Lion King

We actually didn't watch any of the Madagascar or Lion King movies because we already own these and the kids have already seen them many times. However, Allen was enthralled with finding Madagascar on the map because he recognized the name!

Born Free is one that I wanted to see, but couldn't get.

Activities

Play-Doh Map

Oscar cracks me up on this one. Invariably, at point, he says, "Oh no! The people in Africa are covered in Play-Doh!" Haha.


Mancala/Making Tallies

We learned how to play mancala, an African game. I took this opportunity to teach Oscar how to make tally marks (and I may have let him win quite a bit so we could get to five!). We played this with my cousin's kids when they came over, so they got on the scoreboard, too.


Rhino Washing

Nice idea, bad execution. I bought our very first Schleich animal--a rhino, which I adore! The tray had a little pitcher/bowl combo for water, an old food coloring squeeze container filled with dish soap, and a couple flannel wipes for washing and drying. Unfortunately, it didn't get used much because it was such a pain to haul the pitcher and bowl down the hall to the bathroom to refill and empty, and Allen squeezed out the entire soap bottle in a few minutes' time when I wasn't looking. The kids enjoyed the washing part, though. The takeaway is to not try this activity if you don't have immediate access to a sink!

Making Pyramids

Using some yellow posterboard from the dollar store, we cut out equilateral triangles and drew stones on them. This was a great time to discuss the different kinds of triangles (right, isosceles, scalene, equilateral) as well as explore angles and use a protractor to create the pyramids.


Pea/Bead Spooning

Pin Map

See tutorial here. When I first looked at the flag template, I said, "You have GOT to be kidding me!" Over sixty countries in Africa! I went ahead and made all the flags, but only set out about fifteen of the most famous or likely-to-be-in-the-news countries for Oscar to pin.

If you've been reading the blog for a while, you'll notice that I took the books off those shelves to make a place for the pin maps. The kids have plenty of books in another spot in the house, and they are rightly more interested in doing the activity trays when they're in the schoolroom. Also, you can see the start of my continent box collection on the floor! I'm using Adam's shoeboxes, which, while not the most glamorous setup, fits the materials perfectly. Sometimes it pays to have a husband with size 15 shoes. Those boxes are HUGE, y'all.


Buying Coffee

I did this with our South American study, too. Our Winco has a giant selection of coffees from around the world, so when it's time get more coffee for the house, we'll select a bean that comes from our continent of study. This month's selection was Tanzanian peaberry, which is actually really delicious! It's just a little thing to help underscore the idea that Africa is a real place with real people that grow real food!


Making Hot Pap

A breakfast found in South Africa is hot pap, you make this cereal by boiling cornmeal. Allen thought it was pretty gross, but Oscar and I enjoyed it to the last drop!


Nigerian Traditional Dress Coloring

Found a really great page full of traditional dress coloring pages from all around the world here.



So now Africa is done, and we are pressing on to Asia!