What's on the Geography Shelf: IKEA Puzzle Box

As promised, I will be posting about what we have on our geography shelf.  Obviously, there are many things one could incorporate into their supplies-this is just a sampling to give you ideas of what you can do.

I will be adding stuff as we move along but for now this is what I have.  The IKEA storage box is great for holding puzzles because of its size.  I am able to stuff the Nat. Geo 2 side World puzzle and a few others in it.  The Animal Jigsaw puzzle book (by Garry Fleming) was given to me by a friend a few years ago, and I am excited we can integrate it into this unit.  It is below his skill level but hey-while I am reading him something about that particular continent-he can be putting it together.  He does well when his hands are busy whilst I read so it is a win-win situation for us.  I also see there are few other puzzle books in this series and I am seriously thinking of getting the continent book.  Again-not difficult by any means but it is way cheaper than getting the Geo Puzzles I want.  Again, being that he is our last student, I hate to drop too much $$ to pull this World Geography unit together.  If I had more coming up behind him, it'd be a different story.

The only issue I have with the puzzle book is that Antarctica is only a picture!  They really should have figured a way to get it to be a puzzle too.  It's a shame. Otherwise, the graphics/pics are very nice.  I see you can pick one up via Amazon for pretty darn cheap too.

The puzzle holding box is on the second shelf, right-hand side.

Samples of activities for zoology using critter replicas, labels and control cards

We're going to be covering birds and insects and swimming creatures this year for science. I have always enjoyed activities that help reinforce the lessons by using fun little goodies to do so.  Being that I have a Montessori background, and love the Charlotte Mason method-I try to combine the best of both worlds when I can.

image from the Safari Ltd. site

So I found (like why didn't I take a closer look at these before? Really? I am not happy with myself for walking right past these little gems for some time now-OY!) Safari Ltd. Toobs.  These containers hold a nice amount of critters, or people or flowers or well-known landmarks that can easily be tied into most lessons. One can use them for map work, science activities, matching lessons, and more.  So my goal is to collect the Toobs we need for our year. I should have all or at least most of them bought before Oct/Nov.  I am of course, focusing on the immediately needed ones first.  I have already purchased both the backyard birds and the exotic birds sets.  Being that I hate paying full price, and the couponer in me demands this-I gathered up my 40% and 50% coupons for JoAnns to save a few bucks-which I could use b/cuz they were not on sale. JoAnns has them for around $9 something and so I was able to get one for about $5 ish and the other around $6ish.  I will continue to use the coupons until I have all the sets I want :)!

image from the Safari Ltd. site

Thankfully, on the Safari Ltd. site, you can click the image to see what is included. If you ctrl/prt sc then go to MS Paint (if you have such programs) you can cut/trim it and then save it to put onto MS Word to create a control card for your activity.  I enlarged one kinda big (for youngers to place the actual bird onto) but it kinda fuzzed the wording. So I also shrunk it to a better size (as a control card for my son) that isn't so bad. I also used the MS Word to create name cards as well.  I then printed and laminated for long term use.

I then will put it on the tray (as pictured, but I am going to paint it white) when we get to those chapters in science.  It is just a kinda fun extra thing for my son to do to stave off boredom.  For the younger set-it is a great activity (very Montessori) to help learn the different birds (or whatever critter you want to study). The basic deal is that the student takes the word card and matches it to the right bird.

I will also be purchasing the N.A. animals and the river ones too.  I need that snapper from the river set to use along the Minn of the Mississippi book (BFB geography). Figured we would have fun occasionally moving the turtle down the great Mississip (with our sense of humor I am sure it'll be interesting) map that he fills in/colors as he goes thru the chapters. And it'll serve as a great replica of what a real one looks like. Mind you-he's already had fun poking at a snapper or two when his dad and him have been out and about on their walks. He knows a snapper and understands just why it is called one. That said, because this is one critter you do not want to handle for real-this is a great option to have! LOL.  Plus, I can pull a lot of those animals from the river set for our history study of the expansion west (in the US) that we're tagging into our Calf. history (by BFB).  Once I get a fun set together for that-I will be sure to post.

The beauty is you can create what you need. 

I also printed off a free coloring page of a snapper to use to teach turtle parts.  He covered that way back when he was in Kindergarten but obviously, it's been a while and why not revisit it?  So I will the laminated pic, some Vis-a-Vis markers and a control card (still need to create) that he can use to remember them. He'll just use different colors for different parts. I will also make an actual turtle control card with the correct areas labeled so he can self-check it.  I will probably do it for the Seagull one I have when we do the book, Seabird.  I have to go thru the Apologia notebooking wkbk I bought to go along with the Zoology 1 I have. If they don't do that-then I will create one.

This is just a simple idea that can create a fun, integrated 'accessory' for your  student's learning experiences. Think outside the one-dimensional when you are looking for different ways of teaching and you'll be surprised at what you find!

**the Toobs use the correct names for most of their sets, which is good b/cuz I prefer the child learns the right name of an animal. For the younger kids, you can get away with saying "bird" or "flower" but it does help significantly if you label it as it should be-their specific name.  I will also make cards with the Latin names for my son to match up because when we do our nature study notebooks (CM way), we always add that and I want to be sure to provide another opportunity for him to learn them.

**I am not an associate for these companies-altho I should be LOL. Just wanted to share what we have found to be very useful for our lessons.