Geography Co-op: Africa

Jambo! For this month's geography co-op, we took a trip to the continent of Africa. A safari hunt, Adinkra cloth and other activities made our time fun (and educational)! Here's our schedule - feel free to make use of it for your own world exploration. Sorry about the lack of pictures. I'd forgotten to bring my camera.  :-(

• Colored maps of Africa
  
• Read “Water Hole Waiting” by Jane and Christopher Kurtz
  
• Safari Hunt: Hidden around the livingroom were various envelopes, each containing stickers for a different African animal. One of the moms would read a riddle about an animal, the children would guess, then they'd hunt for the envelope that contained that animal's stickers. The stickers were then put on their Africa maps.
  
• Adinkra Cloth: Next, the children created their own Adinkra fabric. Most of the Adinkra crafts I found online were quite complicated for a group as young as ours. Instead of dying the fabric, stamping with wax or carving our own stamps, we just allowed the kids to stencil designs using permanent markers and/or use stamp designs from a pre-made collection. They had examples of Adrinkra cloth to work from, but only a few kids chose to do organized designs! One note: the permanent marker seeped through the cloth and stained the wooden table we were using. One of the moms suggested using rubbing alcohol to wipe it off...and it worked perfectly! Yeah for good cleaning advice.
  
• Read "Honey, Honey, Lion!" by Jan Brett. As a go along to the story, the children used a variety of noisemakers to illustrate the Honey Badger's journey through the Savannah. The idea sprang from a suggestion on Jan Brett's site. I didn't end up making the exact noisemakers she recommended...I chose simpler stuff, but same noises!
  
• Finally, we learned a little bit about the Maasai people in Kenya
• Some live in huts: Make Huts out of playdoh - model around a ball, then lift off. Can also use stencils of different animals in playdoh. (We didn't do this activity...ran out of time!)
• Many villages do not have running water. Kids walk to well and then bring water back, balancing bucket on head: Have a balancing relay race. (We did this game. Fun, once the kids caught on!)