Weeks 18, 19, & 20 - Kenya

It was with a little sadness that we wrapped up our study of Africa last week. This has definitely been our favorite continent so far! We focused mainly on Kenya, but studied all of Africa and the savannahs. Here, Maryella and Elianna are working on a puzzle of Africa together. Elianna had a couple days of homeschooling with us before her preschool started back in January.

Playing mancala - a game that originated in Africa.

These are some of the books we enjoyed during our studies.

We drew pictures of many of the African animals throughout our three weeks. This was one of the early ones we did (yes, I draw them too!)

I found these giraffe paint by number pictures in the dollar section at Walmart back during the summer. The girls enjoyed doing these!

This torn paper lion was one of my pinterest finds.

We cut animal pictures from our old Nat Geo magazines, glued them on poster boards, and then "finished" the pictures. This girls each did these differently. I love how Kaylin cut her out animals out of their backgrounds.

The girls made clay animals one day.

They painted them on the day that we were having new floors installed. That only disrupted things for one day.

We took the animals outside after they dried so they could enjoy a mini "safari"!

The girls made African drums one day.

They also made necklaces to look like African jewelry.

We happened to drive past a sign for Payne's Prairie on our way south one day. I didn't even know it was there! We had just learned that there are grasslands on each continent - African Savannah, European and Asian steppes, South American pampas, and North American prairies. This was a perfect find for a quick field trip!

We learned that children in some parts of Africa like to collect scraps of old wire and twist them together to make vehicles to play with. These toys are called galimoto. We used pipe cleaners to make ours.

Annlee's galimoto (and notice those new floors! Woo hoo!)

As our three week "trip" to Africa came to an end, it was time to try out some African food. We shelled peanuts together and then roasted them as a treat to eat while the rest of the dinner cooked.

We enjoyed meat on a stick, corn and peas, chapitas (a fried flat bread), and sweet potatoes. They grow lots of yams in Africa. I'm sure they don't bake them as fries like we did, but that's the only way my girls will touch them.

I think the favorite part of the meal was that they got to eat with their hands! Not many utensils used in Kenya!

We had fun making all the little foldouts to include in our lap books.

I think these really help the girls retain what they are learning. Plus, it's a handy way to show off the things we've talked about.

Remember those pictures of the giraffes we drew? We ended up drawing lots more animals during the three weeks. We use the Draw, Write, Now books to draw them. We all love doing them! These are Kaylin's animals. Hopefully they show up here. I thought she did a really great job! Here Kenyan fact cards are shown here too.