At the beginning of this study I had been looking forward to making an official Antarctica Continent box. I have never made a continent box before and I loved the very idea of collecting themed bits and pieces. I mean, is there anything more fun than that? I knew exactly the box I had in mind. It was the box our Cover Story curriculum arrived in and was the perfect size and shape. The first thing I did was stick a map of Antarctica on it and label it:
On the flip side of the lid I stuck a territorial map to remind the children that there were no Antarcticans but that Antarctica belonged to many nations all of whom had agreed to look after it and protect it:
Now for the fun part – filling it.
I searched the house for any books pertaining to Antarctica. These first two are lovely easy reading for the older ones but are not too hard for A6 to read and as you would expect the pictures are typical Usbourne quality. A6 read both of these during her time with Granny:
These two science books were perfect for our Antarctica study and brought in some scientific reading and thinking:
The Dr Seuss books were just for fun, but contained a surprising amount of factual information written in his usual humourous, poetic way:
The other book is kind of cool. It goes through lots of different countries and the weather they would see during a day in March. It includes both the Arctic and the Antarctic:
as well as a really lovely colourful map in the back:
I also included all the magazines written about Antarctica that I could get my hands on (see my resource page for where I sourced everything from):
Of course a continent box wouldn’t be complete without some of the animals found there. I included some lovely Schleich ones as well as two wind up penguins for the littles to play with and the family of Emperer Penguins L12 had made as a gift:
I photocopied a couple of other maps so that there were enough to go round during discussion times:
I squeezed everything into my handy dandy continent box and here it is, all finished and full to the brim with goodies for the children to explore:
Coooo-elle!
I’ve been wanting to do continent boxes, but never figured out how I wanted to do them.
It was fun! I may even do another one for the Arctic (although I do realise it wouldn’t strictly be called a continent box)
I have always wanted to do that as well. I love yours. You are always an inspiration to me.
Thank you Phyllis.
You are inspiring me, Claire :-). I just may tackle my very own unit study for the first time for D7 and G5 and possibly my I12. I have done what others have already created, but I’ve been inspired to create my very own. I will just have to reign myself in on all of the books and accessories that are so cute and “necessary” LOL!
Question for you …..You mentioned Reader’s Theatre Scripts in your other post…..what are they and are they free? I never heard of them before.
Thanks so much!
Blessings to you and your family,
Brenda
Oh, I hope you do your own own. It’s so much fun choosing what you want your children to learn and collecting all the resources.
The readers theater I mentioned is a play based on the Antarctica and can be found here:
http://beyondpenguins.ehe.osu.edu/issue/keeping-warm/creating-readers-theater-scripts-from-informational-text
Apart from reading through it we have run out of time to do much else with it.
I look forward to hearing about what you do!
Oh! I LOVE this. Really, I couldn’t love it more. What a fantastic resource to have on hand – and you made it yourself. It’s just perfect.
Aw, thank you Leah!
I remember doing something very similar to this for Tiger years ago. These boxes are wonderful as a tool for exploration and discovery, aren’t they? Yours look fantastic!
Thanks Hwee!
That is a wonderful resource for exploration for the children…and as I love penguins, I wouldn’t mind having one of my very own 😀
I’ll send it to you when we’ve finished!!
Fun! This brings me back – P’s interest in Antarctica when she was five started our “world journey” – I had so much fun finding resources and putting them all together for her.
This has been particularly interesting for me because I have never studied it in any great depth before.