Weeks 18-20 Kenya

[Marie]

Weeks 18-20
Kenya


Additional ideas might be located on other boards:
Kindergarten / Zebra: http://board.mfwbooks.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=33
Soap project: http://board.mfwbooks.com/viewtopic.php ... p=542#p542

[lmjmann]

Here is an interactive map site of Kenya. Be sure to click on the "anthem" and "culture" areas below the map. You will be able to see coins, postage stamps, learn the meaning behind their flag and even hear their national anthem. Lots to do on the site.
http://www.blissites.com/kenya/map.html
Laura M.

[Sue in MN]

We played a geography game called Go Travel: Africa. I picked it up at our state's homeschool conference. There are 52 beautiful cards with a country on each. They are grouped with nearby countries into groups of four. You can play Go Fish or Concentration with them. The cards themselves are beautiful full color cards with a map showing the country with rivers, capital etc. They also show postage stamps or pictures from the country and a map of Africa showing where the country is on the continent of Africa.

For instance Kenya is in the East Africa group along with Rwanda& Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda. I'm not sure if the person who made these has a website but her email is gotravel@clinton.net
or write

Travel-by-Games
Box1431
Clinton, IA 52372

I hope she makes them soon for the other continents because it is a really nice game and inexpensive too.

[Julie in MN]

A free downloadable game for learning the names of countries in Africa (we need all the help we can get!):
www.familygames.com/freelane.html

Julie

[Julie in MN]

AFRICA

1. After our exploration of Grimm's fairy tales in Germany, we had a renewed interest in folk tales at our house. Prior to that, I think we all felt they were scary & "not true," so why read them?! Now they seem like fun ways to teach character lessons! We enjoyed the recommended stories, & watched a couple on video:

VHS "Stories Alive!" told by Toni Simmons, a professional storyteller. This really brought out the "story" part, making it clear that these are not "myths" they thought were true, but instead used the art of fun storytelling to teach children morals.

VHS Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters, read by Amy Marsalis, is the same exact book recommended in ECC, but it was just nice having someone else read it :o) It's worth getting the book as well, because the illustrations really bring out the beauty of the African people more than most books.

Reading Rainbow VHS of Galimoto, hosted by LeVar Burton

2. "Stories from Africa" was an additional good book, sold places like Sonlight. It doesn't have a lot of info about Africa, but has nice missionary & character focus.

3. Again there are extra chapters from Trip Around the World if you want to touch on a couple extra countries. My 9-year-old actually requested more countries!

4. For once, we were pretty happy with how our art projects turned out -- the bowl made of fabric scraps turns out nicely. For the paper bag mural of the grasslands, being that ds dislikes coloring, we got out an old set of blow pens to "spray paint" the background (wow, these were old, but revived by soaking in water). Then ds used the National Geographics we had used for the poster at the beginning of the year, to find animals and chunks of grass.


5. Since he has been frustrated with his drawing ability on the science pages, I wanted to do use Drawing With Children but never got to it. So I took Sue's recommendation & handed ds "Draw Write Now, book 8." Sue was right & ds was proud of his science pages of African Grassland animals (as well as desert & mountain ones).
( http://board.mfwbooks.com/viewtopic.php ... p=833#p833 )

6. My kids weren't crazy about trying sweet potatoes & yams, so we had a "taste test" and tried each of them plain, with salt, sugar, or butter. It was fun.

7. I have been reserving the Patricia St. John books recommended in ECC, but ds has never gotten to them. However, before I return them to the library, I keep getting into them & reading them myself! (I know I'll enjoy the ones in CtoG!)


8. While reading the missionary biography, we had fun with the line, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume!" We also found David Livingstone is in many older books on explorers. Sadly, Christian figures seem to slowly get weeded out of history books, so you have to look for old books. Ds continues his "true notebooking" on the missionaries, so here are our links!

David, his birthplace, & "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" drawing
http://www.sorbie.net/david_livingstone.htm

portraits of David's life: (the national geographic feature & the site with "rare slides" promoting "Forbidden Territory" are no longer there, but I wonder if the movie Forbidden Territory was good?)

The last 2 photos on the page are of David's home site/daughter's grave, & dental "chair": http://www.theratzlaffs.net/jcwp2002/So_Botswana/

Sechele: http://www.vanriebeecksociety.co.za/doc ... gstone.htm

Blantyre, Scotland (rest cursor over each photo to read source): http://www.blantyre.biz/davidlivingstone.html

Painting of Lion: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atlanti ... nelion.jpg

From his journal, click on "image gallery": http://www.nls.uk/jma/

One of his map sketches, & near the bottom is the African burial tree, & his gravestone: http://www.galenfrysinger.com/david_livingstone.htm

Mary: http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography ... stone.html

One of the men who carried his body out, & girls from Kikuyu: http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/bulletin/bu0111.htm

Victoria Falls, 1st link has rainbow, 2nd is drawing of David discovering, 3rd shows largest falls in world, 4th is supposed to be an expedition drawing:
http://www.go2africa.com/zimbabwe/victo ... ria-falls/
http://www.larrynortonart.com/printdisp ... =1&click=1
http://www.fullpassport.com/Trip2000/Diary/sept-1.html
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/livingstone.htm

Statue, postage stamp: home.vicnet.net.au/~neils/africa/livingstone.htm

[lasudds]

This may sound like a "young" idea, but my girls, ages 10 and 5, had a blast doing this today... since we don't live close enough to visit a zoo, I had our own backyard safari. They made binoculars from toilet tissue holders. I printed a "welcome to Africa" sign and pictures of 10 different animals we might would see if we went on a safari. We live by the woods, so I pinned the different pictures on trees, etc for them to hunt for. Each picture had tabs for them to tear off when they found that animal. When they brought me back all 10 tabs, I had a surprise for them... a bag of animal cookies. Also, I made them split up while hunting since I knew the older would surely find them all first. Simple but we had a lot of fun.

[Tina]

Hi everyone: I have been waiting to post here. I love sharing what we experienced after each country. Anyway, we had to extend our trip in Africa due to much sickness in the home, which hasn't been pleasant but it did force us to spend another week in Africa, which was good because we were able to travel into Mozambique, a country that dh has visited and the children were already familiar with. Here were some highlights for us:

--Galimoto. My dc tried building them with everything. Dd did it with pipe cleaners, ds did it with K'nex. He was so proud of himself. He didn't tell anyone that he was doing it and just showed up at the school table with it and was so proud. He then went on to say that he would like to build other things with K'nex and magnetix, like BIG things. I then said that maybe God will have him build things for a living and his response was priceless "I don't know mom, God hasn't told me yet what I'm going to do"

--Books. David Livingstone. We loved this book. We enjoyed looking at the web pages that Julie has above. We expanded on the study of lions with dd also. It was interesting and fun. We also read Mary Slessor and enjoyed reading it. We read several other recommended books too "Daddy, there's a Hippo in the Grapes" was cute. It was a nice lesson of growing up and keeping to responsibility even though it's hard. We also enjoyed several of the swahili books. We did a VBS program this past summer which included several swahili words. We always enjoy how the Lord puts everything together in all our learning!

--Art. Fabric baskets came out pretty good. They took a long time to dry, but the dc really thought it was neat how they kept their shape. We did our African mural a little different and it was interesting. We also did the simple necklaces from paper plates. That was a fun, quick project. I did get the material for the plaster of paris moldable bowl (simulates casting metal) If we don't do it now, we will do it in the summer. Dd will make sure of that!

--Food. We made the african fruit salad which I loved and dc did not (except the coconut--that was the highlight!). We also made the plantains which again, I did not mind, and dc and dh did not like. We also experimented and made african sweet rolls, like little donuts. They were good, if I didn't burn them! LOL.

This continent is rich in its diversity in people and ways of life. We were able to appreciate it more and gain a greater understanding of the need for God's word to be brought to others. We are truly enjoying each country and continent. (Oh, we will watch dh's tape from Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland...we have seen it several times but it will be a perfect close to our Africa study....we also got some cute videos from the library, one about the African-American Museum in Washington and several on African stories and animals of the grasslands. Fun and interesting and good to watch when we were all so sick).

And, I love the last post about the safari search. We have done this in the past and the dc love it. We call it "I Spy". I must make myself get to this because we have so much fun with it. Thanks for all the ideas and I'll catch up in Asia and Saudi Arabia!

[missionsmom]

There is a fun link to a live webcamera at an African watering hole on a private game reserve in South Africa. It is a lot of fun to watch. We have seen elephants, giraffes, baboons, warthogs, lots of gazelle and wildebeests, as well as many interesting birds.

The best time to check it is early in the morning in the US (evening in Africa) or late at night 11:00pm or later in the US (dawn in Africa). Many times we see nothing at all, but keep checking...it is soooooo cool when you do.

http://www.wavelit.com/index.asp?ch=Wildlife&sh=africam

[momof3nKS]

PBS had a special on Africa so I was surfing their site to find out more information and came across this.

http://pbskids.org/africa/

[Tracey in ME]

It is a live web-cam of different places in Africa! Now, the only REAL "live" cam is of Nkorho Stream in Southern Africa...but it is sooo neat! Look for the link on the left that says "Nkorho Stream." I have it on all day and am addicted to peeking at it!

So far I have seen wildabeasts and a little deer. So cool! Oh, and I just saw some sort of fox-like guy, too!

http://www.africam.com/wildlife/index.php

I'm hooked. I've seen monkeys, wildebeasts. baboons, zebras, giraffes, impalas, birds and even heard a lion!

[Amy in NC]

Someone sent me this link to pictures & videos of people swimming at the edge of Victoria Falls. If you've read David Livingstone, it gives a great illustration of how he was able to lean over the edge of the falls. It also makes a reference to "Livingstone Island."

http://fogonazos.blogspot.com/2008/02/s ... .html?fark

[LizCT]

My daughter, who is 10, isn't the best reader in the world. She did request that the books she reads be for whatever country we are studying for ECC. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:30 am
There is a series of books from Alexander McCall Smith - Akimbo and the Elephants is one title. There are others. They are for ages 8 and up. They are set in Africa and are stories about a young boy whose father is a head ranger in an animal preserve. Maybe if you read the first one together (as we are doing) you can see if she may be interested in reading others in the series.

I find that my dd loves to read books about animals - we are currently reading all books we can find about the Iditarod and she loves the books because she is interested in the sled dogs.

Liz

[Toni@homezcool4us]

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 12:18 pm

It was produced by Taylor University and is entitled Angel in Ebony. (in fact, we're headed there now to explore Samuel's influence.) I will caution you that I have not yet viewed it (only sampled it) for content, but it appears to be a good supplement to reading about him in Hero Tales. The quality isn't great, but if the film isn't too long, it might still be worth viewing. You can find the video link on the page below.
http://www.taylor.edu/about/morris/impact.shtml

[Amy in NC]

Someone recently mentioned a book called I Lost My Tooth in Africa by Penda Diakite, so I requested it from the library. I was very impressed by this book, primarily because the author was only 8 yrs old when she wrote it. It is a true story about what happened to her sister on a family trip to Africa. Her father did a great job illustrating the story. The author was 14 when the book was published in 2006 and her picture is on the back of the book. I loved that it seemed so personal and heartwarming. I would definitely recommend this book.

[cbollin]

Galimoto is also on Reading Rainbow DVD. It helped inspire my girls to do the wire bending activities as it showed someone else doing it.

And I have one child using pipe cleaners to make her wire toys and another trying with wire from jewerly making section of a craft store. They decided that they didn't want to make cars, but other things. So, just trying to encourage everyone to enjoy the activities :-)

In general, we're enjoying a series of DVD from Schlessinger Media called Countries Around the World, as well as their Biomes of the World in Action
series all throughout our ECC year.

We found a music CD called Literacy in Motion, by Learning Station. Track #8 is based on the book Moja means one. Great way to listen to some Swahili words. Also, track #20 has some other Swahili language too. So, just another way to incorporate language activities in this unit beyond what is in the package books.


-crystal

[Winkie]

A few extra books we're enjoying with Kenya:
Kenya ABCs by Sarah Heiman
For You Are a Kenyan Child by Kelly Cunnane
Owen and Mzee by Isabella Hatkoff

[Julie in MN]

1. How do you pronounce Mauritania?
2. How do you pronounce Namibia?
Thanks,
Trish

Hi Trish,
Have you tried dictionary.com for the first 2? They have a little button to "hear" most of these types of words.

Here's how I say them:
More-i-tane-ee-yuh
Nuh-MIB-ee-yuh

[cbollin]

When do you use the animals page from "A Trip Around the World?"

the page is scheduled for use on week 19, Thursday. See the notes for Make a mural

if you need more animals or plants for a child who wants a larger mural... check out this resource for more to print
http://janbrett.com/mural_hhl/honey_hon ... _mural.htm

-crystal

[cbollin]

Has anyone had problems doing this activity? We have mixed together the dough and it is too sticky. My dd cannot get anything to mold. It won't hold its shape and sticks to her hands. We are about to scrap the project.
Sue

I didn't try that recipe. I know something didn't seem right to me in the proportions with the salt/flour. But I didn't actually try or use the recipe listed in the a Trip Around the World book.

We had some store bought playdough and just played with it and shaped it. we did the Africa weeks during December, so I adapted and improvised. We made cookies in lots of shapes too. (even thought about getting the circus box of animal crackers hee hee)

We also had some air dry modeling clay left over from some craft during Canada. I didn't think about it, but we could have used that for making them if we wanted to paint them.

Anyway, you might consider looking at some online recipes and seeing about how much oil you could add ?
http://www.easy-child-crafts.com/salt-d ... cipes.html

or switch over to quick and easy Model Magic to use?

-crystal

[s_duguid]

Thanks, Crystal. I used the link you posted. Adding more flour helped to make the dough easier to work with.

For those of you who are considering this project, just to let you know, it was impossible for us to create 3-dimensional objects. Even when the dough was easier to work with and allowed us to make shapes, as the object was resting it settled and shifted into a blob. Well, not exactly . . . it just couldn't hold shape and detail well. I really wanted to paint the objects and do not have any other supplies on hand. (If I were you, I would take Crystal's advice and use another medium that could be painted.) I am not going to try a 2-D approach either. We're moving onto the mural instead.

Cute idea. We just couldn't make it work.

-Sue

[my3boys]

We're using 'model magic'. You could just do it with playdough though - it will air dry.

[jentancalann]

It worked ok for us, I just added more flour til it wasn't as sticky. The objects did settle and flatten just a bit, but the kids did a snake, a croc, and a turtle so it wasn't that big of a deal. They didn't harden all the way, but I think that's because they were each so big. We just painted them, took pictures, and threw them away. They had fun though!

[doubleportion]

A wonderful addition to music time for Africa weeks would be songs from two of Selah's albums. On "Press On" there is a " Yesu Azali Awa" (Jesus Is Here With Us) in Congelese, & "How Great Thou Art" in Kituba Dialect. On their "Hiding Place" album there is the Congelese Hymn- Esengo and "We'll Understand It By And By" in Kituba.

On the Hiding Place Album notes, By And By has the coolest recording notes written by Todd Smith- "In 1948 my Grandfather Laban and grandmother Marcella started the mission station of Nkara-Ewa.This is where Nicole and I grew up in the Congo, Africa. So many people were coming to know Jesus as their Savior that the Belgian government outlawed baptism for two years. They thought the people were excited and didn't know hwta they were doing. My grandparents continued to disciple and share the gospel during those two years. The recording you're hearing is of my grandfather in our lake on the first day he was allowed to baptize. The Belgian government didn't realize how real Jesus was to the Congolese, because on this day over 1,000 people were baptised. In the background you can hear my grandmother and the Congolese singing th old Hymn "We'll Understand It Better By and By" which she and my father Jim translated into Kituba."

Just wonderful to hear other tongues and peoples praising our Savior!!!

Edie

[doubleportion]

http://www.kenya-information-guide.com/
lots of good info here including recipes, language, animal pics etc

also you can listen to an orchestral recording of Kenya's Nat'l Anthem at
http://mwanasimba.online.fr/E_anthems_kenya.htm
(click on the flag and wait, it should start playing)

[doubleportion]

Two nice books to add to the list

On Safari - Animal Trackers Around the World by Tessa Paul printed by Crabtree Publishing copyright 1998


Kenya by Ali Brownlie in the Letters From Around the World series from Cherrytree Books copyright 2002
Summary on back says : "Meet Fred. He's 9 years old and lives in the village of Karagita, near Lake Naivasha, in Kenya. Fred likes playing soccer with his friends and riding the family tractor. Find out what it's like to live in Kenya by reading Fred's letters. He'll introduce you to his family, tell you how to make ugali following his mother's recipe, and show you how to make your own soccer ball."