Make Continent Boxes for Continent Studies

     I found a picture today that I don't think I have shared with you before. Last year my girls and I took boxes and spray painted them black. We then printed out a picture of each continent and labeled the boxes on front and on the side. When they were finished we added continent related learning materials to each. They have came in handy for a bunch of our studies and one of our favorite units to do each year are continent studies.

We store the boxes on a top shelf in our school room, until we are ready to use them. 

I really like that they aren't to bulky and are easy to store. 

Inspired to make your own? 

Check out our Pinterest boards for more inspiration.

Homeschool - Seven Continents

Follow Jennifer Silcott's board Homeschool - Seven Continents on Pinterest.

Unit Study - North America

Unit Study - South America

Unit Study - Europe

Unit Study - Asia

Unit Study - Africa

Unit Study - Australia

Unit Study - Antarctica

Australia - Wk 6 - Day 8 - Boomerangs & Play

Today I meet up with my mil, and a friend for a co-teaching day. It was nice to get the kids together to play and have some visitation ourselves. We did focus on Australia some more, with the focus on Boomerangs mainly. I thought coloring our own boomerangs and watching a video on how boomerangs work would be fun. We also reviewed a little about what we have learned and I read a story about a young girl who lives in Australia. Interesting to learn they drive on the left side and drink lots of tea, like those who live in Britain.

Here is the video we watched :) 

Why do boomerangs come back?

Below is a picture of my mil helping my oldest with multiplication and division. :) 

Visit our Australia Pinterest Board

Australia - Wk 6 - Day 7 - Australia Unit Ideas

Today we are working on our reading, writing, and math skills. Each girl is working in their own station and then rotating. It's going great. The oldest is also having fun being a teacher, as she calls it. She has really been a big help today.  At this moment she is making copies of math worksheets to help her sisters complete. :) It takes a lot of pressure off of me when they can work so independently.



 Today, I will be sharing some really neat Australia unit ideas that I have found around the web.  Happy Learning!

Visit our Australia Pinterest Board

Australia Unit Ideas

Australia Curriculum Lessons

Australia Unit Plan

Australia Theme Links

Australia - Free Lessons, Games, and Powerpoints

Australia/Oceania Landmarks Printable

Virtual Teacher - Australia 

Australian Animal Fact Printable

Found Here:

 http://suzieshomeeducationideas.blogspot.com/2013/03/australia-unit-native-animals.html

How well do you know Australia? QUIZ

Blog Entry: Australia Unit Study

Visiting the Land Down Under: A Five-Day Kindergaren Unit on Australia

Australia - Wk 6 - Day 6 - Unsecured Load Scare & Australia Salt Dough Map

Today we had a pretty eventful morning. We started out the morning with a little trip to take my grandmother to the doctor. Everything was going great until I had a 'final destination' moment. That movie always gave me the heebie jeebies, Anyhow, this moment was a bit different. I pulled slowly to stop behind a semi carry a decent load of pipe. I decided that I didn't much like being directly behind the semi, so as soon as I could I pulled to the left lane. My grandmother, not being able to see clearly, asked me if the load was indeed pipe, or huge rolls of tar paper. I assured her that I did indeed think they were pipe. She insisted that we needed a better look, I disagreed and continued to drive, without ever the thought of needing to figure the "not so" mystery out. Oh thank goodness I didn't pull up further for a better look. It happen, friends! A pipe flew off the back of the semi and came barreling at us. Hitting the cement road and flying up again, only for gravity to pull it right back down. I hit the brakes as easy as I could, trying not to send grandma flying into the dash and I maneuvered my way around the lone pipe. Realizing the semi was not paying attention or had no regard, I took it upon myself to inform him of his mishap. I drove quite a distance behind as I was leery of the rest of the pipe and I realized we would meet up again at a distant stop light. As I pulled to the light, I honked my horn a loud two times and rolled my window down. He turned to look and I motioned with my hands and spoke loudly as to inform him. He looked at me with a bewildered look and shook his head, as to say yes. Thinking he must not have understood me, I repeated loudly again trying to inform him. This time it was clear, clear that he knew and had not a care about the situation.  Needless to say, I jotted a little info down from his truck, and later made a couple phone calls. Unfortunately I found out nothing could be done. Really!? So friends, take caution, stay alert when driving, because unfortunately not all loads are secure and you just never know when something may fly right towards you.

Okay, on to our learning fun for today. :)

More Australia Fun

We had some more Australia learning fun. We are now starting week 6 of our homeschool year. Hard to believe we've been at this for almost 6 weeks now, and that we are already on our second week of Australia. Today we managed to finish some worksheets that were left unfinished from last week in our folders and we made a really neat Australia salt dough map. I've had a few people ask me what the recipe is for making salt dough maps, so I will be sharing it below. :)

Salt Dough Recipe

4 cups of flour
2 cups of salt
2 cups of water
2 tablespoons of cream of tartar

Mix with your hands until it feels like playdough. Add more flour or water as needed.

I found some pretty neat printable recipe cards with the recipe. Click below to download and print these cool cards. 

CLICK HERE

Here is a great resource for making outlines for a salt dough map

I also came across a fun blog that gives the recipe for a cookie dough map. How fun and yummy! We will be trying this sometime in the future.

Make a Cookie Dough Map!

Australia - Wk 5 - Day 4 - Explorers & Deserts

Today started out really good and finished even better. We started out the day by decorating the front of our Australia folders. We then took a trip to the library, where we picked up a book about the explorer Captain Cook, a book about deserts and a book about strange animals of Australia. We also learned more about the flag of Australia, and finished up our day with a couple videos. Pretty productive day, and much better than yesterday. :)

Below you will find Desert Resources as well as Explorer Resources.

Deserts of Australia

The deserts of Australia cover 1,371,000 square kilometres (529,000 sq mi), or 18% of the Australian mainland.

We learned that deserts can be divided into five types:

Subtropical Deserts

Continental Deserts

Rainshadow Deserts

Coastal Deserts

Polar Deserts

Click here for a printable pdf. with this great information: Deserts in Australia

Australian Desert Facts

There are 10 deserts in Australia: 

The Great Victoria Desert, Great Sandy Desert, Tanami Desert, Simpson Deset, Gibson Desert, Little Sandy Desert, Strzelecki Desert, Sturt Stony Desert, Tirari Desert, Pedirka Desert.

Only 3% of the Australian population live in the desert. 

Areas of Australian deserts

*Interactive Map of the Deserts of the Australian Outback

_________________________________

Explorers of Australia

The Discovery of Australia

The first Englishman to see Australia was William Dampier

In 1770, Captain James Cook was the first European to explore the eastern coastline of Australia.

William Dampier Resources

William Dampier Coloring Page and Printable

William Dampier: 1679-1707

Teacherstimesaver - William Dampier

Captain James Cook Resources

Captain James Cook for Kids 

James Cook Coloring Page and Printable

ABC TV - Captain Cook 

Captain Cook Timeline

European discovery of Australia

Australia - Wk 5 - Day 3 - Can I Get A Do Over?

Sometimes I just feel like we need a do over. Okay, let me explain. I would only redo the time between 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Why? Well friends, today something happened that I don't wish upon anyone. I had my first blow out in a vehicle. My front right tire popped. It was a very scary experience. Luckily I had a great team with me, my mother for one. She took charge, while I gained my composure and immediately started working on getting it changed. Yay mom! Anyhow after I gathered myself I worked on those pesky tight lug nuts and before I knew it, my hubby showed up and all that was left was to put the spare on. All in all I was glad that it was over and that we could get back on the road. We did a little carschooling on our way home this evening. We talked about things we had read about Australia. I have to admit, I feel like we didn't get a lot accomplished in the means of learning about Australia. On the same token though, I do feel like we all did learn a lot today from our trip with grandma (my mom) . Here are some things we learned and/or observed today.

1) When a tire blows out, have no fear if grandma (my mom) is there. :)

2) Helping people sure makes a person feel good. My children learned more about the gift of helping others today.

3) Some people are very rude to people who work in customer service, and I really think people should be a bit more patient with people.  Yelling at the staff in a food restaurant is just really inappropriate just because your order is wrong.

4) Car salesmen are slooowwwww (I know, I know #3, but really I was patient and nice)

5) Food prices seem to go up every time I go to the grocery store. :(

6) Always check the gas cap and make sure it is closed before you drive away...oops :/

7) It's okay if a school day doesn't quite add up to my expectations. There is always time for a school evening...  ;)

8) A $1.97 badge maker, found at a thrift store, is a really fun toy for three little girls. They will make badges until you asked them to put it away.

9) When a thrift store has all shorts marked down to 20 cents, my mother will buy every pair in her grandchildren's sizes. :) What a blessing!

10) Everyone will help carry in groceries, but nobody wants to help put them away. Ha! It's probably because I'm like "Hey, that doesn't go there" :)

11) Spending time with my mom is nice and I really really enjoy it.

To say the least, it was quite an interesting day.

I did manage to find some pretty neat Australia links to share with you

Visit our Australia Pinterest Board

Australia Mini-Unit Study

Free Printable Australia Day Learning Packet

Australia Unit Study Guide

ABC teach - Australia

Australia Unit Study -

This site has great links and resources for the unit

Arthur's Free Australasia Clipart

Australia - Wk 5 - Day 2

Today we learned more fun things about Australia. We discussed the largest city in Australia, Sydney.  We also discussed Tasmania, the largest island of Australia. We watched videos, did worksheets, and discussed our discoveries.

Visit our Australia Pinterest Board

Click here for a Sydney Opera House coloring page.

Sydney Interactive Map

Sydney Suspension Bridge Coloring Page

Fun Australia Links

Homeschool Share - Free Australia Lapbook

Thematic Units - Australia

Australia Coloring Pages

A Great Unit Study

Australia - Wk 5 - Day 1

Today was the first day of our Australia study. Today the girls learned the location of Australia. We learned about the Aboriginal Culture and Aboriginal art. We also learned about the animals of Australia. Oh yeah, and we talked about the Outback and the Great Barrier Reef. We will be covering all of these subjects more in depth as the week goes by.



Australia Unit
                                 
                          Day 1          Day 6 
                          Day 2          Day 7 
                          Day 3          Day 8 
                          Day 4          Day 9 
                          Day 5          Day 10

Visit our Australia Pinterest Board

R making dots for her Aboriginal art

G coloring her Sugar Glider 

Here is a cute site about Sugar Gliders

B blowing in her Didgeridoo

During the next 2 weeks we will also be learning about explorers of Australia, flag of Australia, Australian food, boomerangs, Australian Christmas traditions, Australian words and expressions, and the 7 states of Australia.

Sounds like I better get busy preparing for a fun couple of weeks. :)

Polar Regions - Wk 4 - Day 10 - Arctic Review

Today we are going to be reviewing all that we have learned about the Arctic this past 2 weeks. Once again, I marvel at how fast these 2 weeks have flown by. When I first sat down with my mother-in-law to plan our units, I just knew that 2 weeks would be too long. Boy! was I wrong. There is so much to fit in to these units, I swear I could drag them on for months at a time. Unfortunately our time has came to finish up learning about the Arctic and next week we will be learning about Australia. Visit us next week as we dive into the land down under.

Here is a link list of all of our learning days about Antarctica and the Arctic. 

Polar Regions Unit 

                         Antarctic      Arctic    

                           Week 3      Week 4

                           Day 1         Day 6

                           Day 2         Day 7 

                           Day 3         Day 8 

                           Day 4         Day 9 

                           Day 5         Day 10 

Visit our Antarctica and Arctic Pinterest Boards for more ideas and fun!