Africa part 2

This is going to be a huge post! We spent 4 weeks in Africa learning about the continent and its animals. I have tried to post several times, resulting in missing photos and lost posts as I click submit!

 Pocket Chart center- students stamp the African Animal in the box and write the word on the lines underneath.

 We learned about the ostrich. We compared an ostrich egg to a chicken egg- I explained to my students that I got the ostrich egg at Lion Country Safari. The kids were very impressed and full of questions. Then, I pulled out the chicken egg to lead a comparison lesson and the kids wanted to know where I got the chicken egg!! I told the class Publix and they were MORE impressed. I had to explain that the eggs we eat ARE chicken eggs. --- makes me a little worried about what they learned during the Farm Unit! We learned that male ostrich have black feathers and female have brown so the boys made black hand print feathers and the girls made brown. Download the Ostrich data collection here.

We read the African folktale Abiyoyo and watched it here. During choice time, students made there own Abiyoyo out of legos.

We learned that the female lion does all of the hunting! They made lion faces by using straws to blow a jab of yellow, brown, and orange paint together on a paper plate. I got out the sharpies for the face. They also made a lion during centers by following the directions.

 We learned about Jane Goodall and her important work with chimpanzees.

Read many books about the regions, language, customs, and folktales from Africa. One of the favorites in Bringing Rain to Kapiti Plain.

We made these adorable back packs for a safari! We talked about why each item was so important!

To get ready for our field trip to Lion Country Safari we visited the web site and used these animal guides to plan which animals we would like to see.

A few math centers and bell work activities relating to African animals.

I LOVE Anasi the Spider stories. We read A Story A Story to learn how these stories began. We also learned about the Rhino and were very lucky to get to see many at Lion Country Safari.

We also learned about Gorillas and read the heartwarming story Looking For Miza

African Animal Masks

As part of the March homework my families had to make an African animal mask. I think they did a wonderful job!!

L is for Leopard

We learned about leopards and made our own spotted leopard using our fingers just like the Ethiopian in the book, How The Leopard Got His Spots.

Z is for Zebra

As our journey through Africa continues we learned about the zebra. Some interesting facts... their ears can turn all the way around to hear what is coming in all directions and we learned that scientists believe that zebra's are black with white stripes. We learned that when zebras are standing in a herd, predators cannot visually decipher between the heat rising from the ground and the stripes.

We read these books and made these zebras by coloring white stripes first and then painting the zebra black.

Why Do Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears?

We read this African Folktale and did a crayon resist of the nighttime scene in the jungle.

G is for Giraffe

Did you know that a Giraffe's tongue is 18 inches long? We have been learning all about the giraffes-

We made these adorable giraffes. I got the pattern from here. We added brown spots by using the eraser on the tip of pencils.

Friendship

I just love the story of Owen and Mzee. It is a true story about a hippo named Owen and a tortoise named Mzee that become friends. We read both of the books and visited their web site.

E is for Elephant

Our first African animal is the elephant. We learned that African elephants are larger, hard to tame, and have larger ears then Asian elephants. Here are some of the books we read.

We made elephant hand prints.

A is for Africa

We have started our study of Africa! The banner was FREE from Vista Print! :)

Here are some of the books that we have read. I have TONS of great books about Africa and African animals thanks to a very generous friend that retired from teaching kindergarten.

                                                             Our journey has just begun.....