Africa Week 3 of 3

This week the kids were supposed to read something about Africa and put together a diorama. Whether it was factual, historical or a folk tale was up to the individual families. One family read about David Livingstone and presented dioramas based on his travels in Africa.

My two kids used African folk tales.  DD read and illustrated "Traveling to Tondo" and DS chose "Unanana and the Elephant."

The Rundown of our co-op this week:

•  Map David Livingstone's travels through Africa (Pg 110 Act. # 388)
• Discussion and Mapping - The Great Rift Valley, Oldavai Gorge, Soda Lakes (Pg 100 Act.# 311, 312 & 314)
• Perform acid/base experiments using vinegar, baking soda, orange juice, grapes, milk, hydrogen peroxide and tea.  First we discussed what the difference is between an acid and a base and then we polled the kids to see what they thought each would be.  Once all the tests were complete they were able to compare the results to their original guesses.  We found they had very few items that were bases and asked them to make suggestions for new items to test that they thought show neutral to base results on the ph scale.  (Mom's note:  Can I say how cool it is to see your kids get excited over school stuff?  They were really excited at this point and wanted to check everything in the kitchen almost!)  They settled on testing flour, and raw egg (divided - one child tested the white, another the yolk and yet another tested a mixture of both). (Pg 100 Act. # 313)
• Sing "Marching to Prestoria" while marching around the house and then find Prestoria on the map of Africa (Pg 108 Act. # 371)
• Discovery learning - figure out how to store water in an egg and test it.  (Pg 110 Act. # 382)

All references are from KONOS Volume II Inquisitiveness. This is planned from an older edition so my page and activity #'s may not match up with yours but you should be able to find them based on the descriptions. Please leave me a comment if you have trouble finding them and I will be happy to help out.