Geography Placemats

I have mentioned these before but I just love the travel magazines that I still receive since I took a group of high school students abroad to Mexico several years ago. Diego loves to flip through the pages and ask me questions about the places that he would like to visit. This day Diego decided to make placemats using the pictures from the magazine.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo

I had all kinds of cute crafts and fun ideas of how to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in our household but unfortunately none of them came to be. I am still teaching part-time and I was in charge of our school's Cinco de Mayo program (for the fifth year in a row.) This program included around 100 performers (both student and non-student) and an audience of around 900. Needless to say, as I am writing this in the evening on May 5th, I am exhausted and a poor choice of shoes has left me nearly unable to walk. But the program was a success and the Hispanic students who make up about 20% of our student population were proud to share their heritage.

I would love to move my Cinco de Mayo plans to this weekend but seeing as it is Mother's Day, I am sure that it will not happen. I am not worried. We make sure that our boys are proud of their Mexican heritage all year round. Through the food they eat, the language they speak, the songs they listen to, and our friends and family they are constantly reminded of the beauty of their Mexican side. So even though I let this one slide by this year, we can proudly say, "¡Viva México!"

Vamos a China (Let's go to China)

For about six months now we have been doing our homeschooling activities based around a theme. For me this works the best for many reasons.

First, I have to find and gather resources and materials. We are very lucky to have a library system with lots of books in Spanish. I have to plan ahead and reserve them, however, because they are spread out among several libraries and would be impossible to find on my own. I also have to look for videos, printables, and websites in Spanish. They are out there, but again, not always easy to find.

Second, I think that the thematic approach allows us to get more indepth with a topic. The boys hear the same new words while we read, play games, color pictures, sing songs, and watch videos.

This past week we did a mix of Valentines activities and China. I had planned to start a new topic today but Diego is still interested in China so we will keep learning more. Isn't that the beauty of homeschool?

Here is a list of activities that we have done or are in the process of doing for our study of China.

Found China on the globe.

Set up chairs and pretended to fly to China.

Learned to write numbers 1-10 in Chinese (picture below)

Coloring pages (Great Wall, Dragons, etc.)

Color-by-numbers dragon (picture below)

Made Chinese Dragon out of toliet paper rolls (picture coming soon)

Made a Panda puppet

Played dominos (idea from Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns)

Made a Great Wall of China out of Legos (also from Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns)

Visited this website many times to learn about Chinese Dragons, Pandas, and Chinese New Year (This is an awesome website IN SPANISH for all of my bilingual buddies who are studying China.)

Diego's numbers are obviously on the right. He wanted to do this over and over again.

This was our first color-by-numbers page. He understood the concept but wanted me to do half of it with him.

Here are our topics since the beginning of the year. I do not allot of specific amount of time to each one. We just learn until we are ready to move on the next topic.

Winter

Penguins/Antartica

Valentines

China

Space (next)

Check out more Geography inspired activities at Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.

Geography Lesson- Postcard Exchange

We have a large map of the United States and a globe in our playroom. Diego can identify Texas (our home state) and Florida (where he visited his great-grandpa) on the map. Debbie at Children Grow Children Explore Children Learn had a fun idea for a geography lesson. She is hosting a postcard exchange so that our little ones can receive mail (a big hit around here) and learn about different places in the country or around the world. We already received a postcard from Selena in Washington and Diego was thrilled. We are placing a sticker on each place that we receive a card from and I am hoping to find a book or website about each place so that we can learn even more. Since it is crazy busy right now I know that I will start this in January when we will be completely crafted-out. If you would like to participate and receive a postcard from us and are willing to send one to us in return, please leave a comment. I know that Natalie at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns is participating as well.