Week 26, 27, & 28 - Review

My apologies for not keeping this blog more current!

Easter weekend was a busy time for me personally and it slipped my mind.

Last week I completely forgot...so I will try and catch up this week!

We have begun to study our final continent - Africa.

The children last week learned all about the animals of this continent which they love.  We've been working on classifying the animals by what they eat (carnivore, herbivore, omnivore)...which leads nicely into learning about food chains and the fact that all living creatures need to eat in order to live.

We've learned that the giraffe has 2 different types of patterns: reticulated and masai.

The children can identify the difference, can you?

We learned about the oxpecker bird that is a helping bird to the animals eating the insects off their fur.

We've learned that the African elephants ears look like the shape of the African continent.

We also learned about the Big 5 (lion, rhino, cape buffalo, elephant and leopard).

We've learned about the Serengeti National Park and going on safari. We've learned about Madagascar and can identify it on the map. We've learned that most of the chameleons on earth live on the island of Madagascar.  We've also learned that the second largest fresh water lake is found in Africa. It's called Lake Victoria.  We've talked about the Horn of Africa (it's named that because it is shaped like a rhino horn) and the fact that it has been in a severe drought for years. We learned that a drought is when the rains don't come which leads to no plants growing and when no plants can grow other living things dependent on the plants for food die. Water is so very important.

We learned about a man named Nelson Mandela. We learned that he was a freedom maker and a life changer.   He fought for equality between the "white" and "black" South Africans, helping the country understand that all people should have access to health care, education and jobs no matter their skin colour.  It was interesting to hear the children make a connection back to when we studied North America.  "This sounds like what happened in North American when the Europeans moved the First Nations people off their land so they could have it."

The children have had a good few weeks learning about Africa. We remembered the time we went to Quaid's school to visit and hear the people of a Masai tribe from Tanzania sing...and their shoes, made out of motorcycle tires!