Africa Week 1: Physical Geography

Day 1:
Read Aloud - Escape from the Slave Traders, a Trailblazer Book about two young African boys who are captured by slave traders, by Dave and Netta Jackson - Chapter 1-2
Overview of physical geography- location, size, climate and landforms.
Looked at Africa on the globe
Physical Features of Africa worksheet (physical features are labeled on map and they have to match the letters on the map to the names of features)
Started a physical map of Africa - Marked the Equator, Tropic of Capricorn and Tropic of Cancer with a dotted line and labeled
Color coded the countries of Africa on Geography Songs map
Listened to Geography Songs
Day 2:
Read Aloud - Escape From the Slave Traders Ch. 3-4
Used clues to locate rivers of Africa
Drew and labeled the Niger, Nile, White Nile, and Blue Nile Rivers on physical map
Completed a table on mountains of Africa and made a vertical bar graph to compare the five tallest mountains.
Shaded the Atlas mountain range brown and labeled
Placed a triangle at Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro and Cameroon Mountain and labeled
Shaded the Ethiopian Plateau orange and labeled
Labeled the Great Rift Valley
Located and labeled the Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Guinea, Mozambique Channel, Lake Victoria, Lake Nyasa, Lake Tanganyika
Worked on Geography Songs
Day 3:
Read Aloud - Escape From the Slave Traders Ch. 5-6
Colored desert areas on a map and wrote unique facts on African deserts
Labeled the Sahara, Namib and Kalahari Desert on physical map
Shaded and labeled the Sahel region between the Sahara Desert and the tropical savanna and rain forest
Watched a neat video from BBC on the Sahara Desert
Wrote one fact about the vegetation that grows in the desert, grassland and forests of Africa
Used an atlas to match longitude and latitudes of islands of Africa
Compared the average yearly precipitation, temperatures and growing season of Africa
Worked on Geography Songs
Day 4:
Read Aloud - Escape From the Slave Traders Ch. 7 Researched products and resources of Africa, completed a chart comparing products, leading African producer and world rank; then, used the information on the chart to answer questions
Used reference books and the internet to find out about animals of Africa, identified them as mammal, reptile, bird or fish then matched the animals with their picture
Explored animals in the Kalahari Desert -here are some videos we enjoyed:
Video of a pangolin
Mole rats in the Kalahari desert
Wild Chronicles Video: Meerkat Hunting Cute giraffe love dance: Funny hippo hunt:
Day 5:
Read Aloud - Escape from the Slave Traders Ch. 8
Work on Geography Songs
Made a jigsaw puzzle map and raced to see how fast we could put it together.
We used the Africa map from the Usborne Sticker Atlas of the World, laminated it and cut it into jigsaw pieces. It was challenging because of the map pictures on the other side. They had to determine if that piece was a part of Africa or not!
This week we will move onto human geography of Africa.
P.S. I teach to my oldest because I find it is easier to shorten or ease assignments rather than make them more difficult. For example, J's table on mountains had to include 10 mountains and I had the younger two include only 5 - all had to graph the 5 tallest. 

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