Our Safari Days

***(a post from last year!!)***

We started a new school year

with lots of enthusiasm and imagination!

The children polished their academic skills

and picked up a few new ones

while learning about African cultures and geography

and wild animals during our Safari Days unit.

A Safari Place value game reinforced the concepts we need

for this year's math curriculum. The children work with materials

and gain a greater understanding of base ten,

all while laughing and hiding from the tigers.

Girls hiding in the grass.

The wooden wild animals were from Shannon

who provided us all with classroom decorations for the Safari Days.

Some of our monkeys ready to start class.

Don't let all the fun fool you. When the children aren't

wearing costumes, or painting, cooking, singing and dancing,

they are devouring chapter books in one sitting,

calculating real life math problems, playing musical instruments,

conducting our own scientific research and writing stories.

There is some serious schooling going on here.

We just value the monkey business too.

There are lots of great ways to learn.
S C tries on an explorer hat.
T C enjoys a new perspective.

SA says she is ready to go on Safari!!

We read a book called "We All Went On Safari"

and learned some Swahili words.

S A demonstrates the design of her clever book report.
She can move her little lion around in the tall grass.

A T reads poetry about African wildlife.

The girls cut out tracing of their hands to make

an African style mask of a lion.

Our lion mask and a giraffe mask

made in one of Shannon's classes.

An interactive book about monkeys includes

this pop-up feature. The girls counted in Swahili for me as

they placed the monkeys back in the display.

S C works with monkey math.

T C and the monkey math game.

A T works on her diorama of the Serengeti.

Michelle's geography classes gave the girls a feel

for the vast prairies as well as other areas of Africa.

Amanda's completed diorama.

T C reports on her diorama. She explains that size is relative.

S A has action in her diorama.

We talked about the food chain and the Circle of Life.

The girls in their African style kanga dresses and head scarves.

T C writes her vocabulary words.

A T writes her vocabulary words.

They choose their own from the many provided.

S A gives a report on lions.

T C gives a report.

A T explains the graph in her report.

Time to get fancy.

We decorated our explorer hats

ala Fancy Nancy, for thrill of it.

We played a safari game where the girls took turns

being the photographers and the animals.

It involved role playing of course, but also

data collection, graphing and prediction.

A T adds her data to our graph.

T C loves being a tiger.

So does S C.

A giraffe waits to have her picture taken.

Gotta love those monkeys.

Sometimes the animals hide from the photographer.

A T strikes a pose with her camera and binoculars.

A Kenyan scrapbook from someone who really

went to Africa on a photograph safari.

The children loved seeing pictures and hearing

about a real-life explorer!

Our little explorers study the pictures in the Kenya scrapbook.

What a fun unit to start our school year.

We are so lucky to have talented dedicated teacher-moms

and our delightful, energetic group of students.