A IS FOR AFRICA!

Before I start talking about our homeschool lesson today, let me just say that I can't believe I'm back blogging again. LOL! Amidst the pile of clothes for ironing as tall as me, basket-ful of clothes for laundry, basket-ful of clean clothes for folding, beddings that I haven't finished drying (for the 2nd time!), and all the other chores and duties I have on my plate, here I am blogging. Priorities, Karen, priorities. Hehe!

Anyway, let's get this on and be done!

We learned that God made the world we live in. It is round, and has lands and bodies of water surrounding lands. We learned that we live in Georgia, in the United States of America, in North America. For today, we talked about another big mass of land far away from where we live. We talked about the continent of AFRICA.

We particularly discussed some of the animals that live in Africa, and we learned that:

• A camel has a hump for it to survive the hot desert. God also gave camels special eyelids and eyelashes to protect their eyes from sand.
• Elephants have big ears that they use as a fan to cool themselves down. They have trunks that they use to pick up food and feed themselves, drink water, and squirt water to give themselves a cool shower.
• Giraffes have long necks so they can reach the leaves on treetops. They have spots to "camouflage" from predators far away.
• Gorillas and monkeys have long arms and long legs to swing from trees. Some big gorillas can build a "house" for themselves using tree branches.
• Daddy lions have beautiful "manes" around their heads.
• Zebras can run fast if they need to escape enemies.
• God has provided each animal the body parts it need to survive and live in African grasslands and desert.

We made our own version of African jungle as we went along our discussion. We used Mega Bloks and wooden animals to portray a jungle scene:

For arts and craft, we made a lion face using cardstocks, wiggly eyes, glue, paint and markers. I let my little boy play with molding clay and animal-shaped cookie cutters while I cut out a lion's mane for our craft. When I finished cutting out a mane, my son then used brown, yellow and orange watercolor to paint the mane. We then made the lion's face and ears. My son glued wiggly eyes on the face. I drew the nose and using a marker, he shaded the lower part of the nose. He then drew the lion's mouth. My son wanted to play with the lion face and use it as a mask, so I taped a plastic spoon at the back of it for him to hold. Here's what our finished project looks like:

ROAR!!! We then spent the next five minutes or so playing pretend. We pretended that we're lions and giraffes but we're best friends. We were roaring and running around the house, eating leaves from pretend trees, and hugging each other and holding hands because even though he was a lion and I was a giraffe, we're friends. BEST. PART. OF. TODAY'S. LESSON!

When we were done playing, we then moved on to writing. It was actually my son who decided to stop playing, "Now let's practice writing." He kept the lion close to him while he was working on the letters K and A, and was roaring every now and then. He kept referring to himself as the Baby Cub and me, the Mommy Lioness. He seemed to be in a very good spirit while tracing the letters. He kept hugging me and had told me so many times, "I love you, Mommy Lioness," while working. That right there was all the validation I needed. He sure had enjoyed his lesson today.

He insisted on writing "CUB" at the bottom of the page as he said that he was a baby cub and I was the Mommy Lioness.