Sewing a Map of the World

I had three students complete one of these this year.  It is a lot of work and a long attention span is a must!  We traced the continents from the world map onto a large piece of felt.  Very carefully, the beads were sewn on one at a time.  

It took a couple of weeks of on and off working for these kids to finish their maps. 

So beautiful!

Chinese Flag   

For our Asia unit, we had a focus on China.  

The small flag I got at the party store.

Lucky, we had the two different star punches.]

Chinese Zodiac Play Dough

I made Red Play dough with my favorite play dough recipe (see below)

Using as many zodiac cookie cutter animals as I could find, the kids would make the shapes!

I hope to add more by the next time we study Asia!

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

1 TBS cream of tarter

1 TBS oil

1 cup water

Mix flour, salt, and cream of tarter together.

Mix water, oil, and food coloring together.

Mix in sauce pan over medium heat until it forms a ball.

Take out and knead until cool.

It's fun to add glitter as well :)  Just mix it in the water!

Earth Beads

Earth Beads

This is a very fun project that is great for your geography study, a solar system unit, or Earth Day!  We made these necklaces in preparation for Earth Day as we were going to pick up litter in our town and we wore these on our adventure.

Use Femo or Sculpey Clay (Sculpey is softer and easier for small hands to manipulate).

Put out the colors for land, water, and air.   I also put out the same colors of pony beads.

  

The kids take small pinches of each one and make balls with each.

Make "snakes"

 Twist together

 And roll into a ball!  This is your bead

 Poke a hole ( a paper clip, tack, or pin pusher will do)

I use a muffin tin for a baking pan to separate them all.  If you have a bigger class, use a mini muffin tin.  To keep track I draw a graph on a piece of paper of the circles and write who's is where.

Here's the finished product!

Land Water Air Sorting

This is a really simple land, air, water variation!  A former co-worker of mine had something like this years ago with scrapbook paper but I think it was with pictures.  I've discovered over the years that works with objects in them (vs. pictures) are so inviting to the the children and are in constant use.  So once again, I went through all my objects and found 6 for each.  I used all animals but I think I might expand it with other items such as buildings and vehicles.

I was really excited about finding this paper.  I've been keeping my eyes out for it for a few years and wanted  paper with realistic graphics!  Ben Franklin was the place to go as I found all 3 under the Northwest section!
It was 12 x 12 but I cut it to 8 1/2 x 11 so it'd fit in a tray on the shelf.

boomerang art

For our Australia study this year we talked a lot about the animals, the land, and the native people the Aborigines.  We looked at many pictures of their art and paintings first and read books about their culture and how they used boomerangs to hunt!  (which was news to me!)  We made these boomerangs and they were a hit!  I cut the shape out of brown poster board and showed them at circle time different ways to do it. 

I wish I had some pictures of theirs to post on here!  Everyone's was so unique.  Some kids even painted suns and turtles on them.  We hung them up at school and then made an Aborigine painting boarder with 2x11 strips of black, green, and red paper.  Each child made a boarder or two (with 'lines and dots') to put around our boomerangs!  It really looked beautiful up there for our Australia study!

Land and Water Globe Art

This is a work I do every few years at the beginning of a geography study after introducing the land and water globe.  This is a black line master that I copy on blue construction paper.  I put glue in a little jar and water it down a bit so it's a thin consistency.  I show them to paint the glue where the land is and then sprinkle sand out of a salt shaker!  It's a favorite every time we do it!

Animals of the Continents

I love the geography area of the classroom!  It seems like the kids gravitate toward anything with small objects.  It also appears that as far as learning about different places around the world, animals are something that they can relate to and connect with.  Therefore having something familiar to connect with a place as far away as Asia helps them realize the diversity in all these places!  

This work is made from felt.  I collected many different animals from toy stores, Michaels, and even my own son's collection (with his permission of course!).  I have it set up in a large basket with the felt all folded nicely and the continents and animals on top.

This is the control book.  I show them how to arrange the continents just like on the picture.

 Opened up it has all 7 continents (again, color coded)  with the native animals underneath.  I show the kids to do one continent at a time.  There is anywhere from 2-5 animals per continent depending on what I could find!  

Continent Sewing

 We did a year long geography study this year focusing on one each continent one at a time.  I was constantly trying to think of new ideas to keep it exciting and fresh while also reiterating the basics of Montessori geography such as  the continent color coding.  This is a super simple sewing work I had on the art shelf.  I wanted to simply use the Africa puzzle piece from the world map but it wouldn't fit in the embroidery hoop I had, so I had to minimize it first on the copy machine.  I just kept a card stock master on hand to trace them onto the burlap.  I also put red dots around the outline indicating where their stitches should go.  (this seemed to really help as I've noticed in past sewing activities they tend to make their stitches really big!).  They turned out great!

Here's a look at the finished product.  For the older kids they'd fill in the middle and the younger ones would simply go around the edges.

Around the World Famous Landmarks

One of my favorite areas of the classroom is the geography/cultural area.  I'm always searching for more ideas and especially manipulatives to invite the kids to the works!  I'm a big fan of the 'Safari Ltd. Toobs'.  It seems like they have them for everything from animals to people to now famous landmarks around the world.  Michaels sells them and if you bring your 40% coupon they are only around $5!  I did a Google Image search for the landmarks, image copied them into a MS Publisher, cut out and laminated!  They are ready for the shelf in September!