Around the World 2: Egypt, Australia, Germany

Egypt
Ancient Egypt, actually :)

Activities

• Mummy Wrap! The kiddos worked in partner pairings to "mummify" friends with toilet paper.  It was a fun way to observe and challenge cooperation and persistence skills.
• Egyptian collar necklaces- Many ways to make these with supplies you already have.  We used brown construction paper, dyed pasta noodles, and yarn.  Our neighbor classroom used paper plates, copper paint and plastic jewels. Everyone loved them.

 

Centers

• Math/Science- We made 3D paper pyramids. Great (fun!) shape study and spatial reasoning
• Writing - spelling names and words with hieroglyphic symbols. A big favorite!
• Sensory - Teamwork to mold sand into great pyramids of Giza
• Art - stencils of hieroglyph symbols were inexpensive and easy to find. Cool, simple way to make Egyptian inspired drawings.
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

 

 

And we could not forget to play musical chairs to "Walk Like an Egyptian" :)

 

Australia

Down Under, learning about animals native to Australia, aboriginal inventions, and modern sights!

Centers

• Art- use pencil erasers and paint to create Aboriginal dot artwork
• Math- "Kangaroo Math"- solve the kangaroo's addition equation with manipulatives, then give him the boomerang with the correct answer.
• Construction - Use various materials to build the Sydney Opera House
• Science- Make "didgeridoos" from various materials shaped into a tube, and see what different kinds of sounds we could make.

Activities

• Over in Australia! We read this as an introduction during our "airplane ride," then got off the plane to make a class mural and turn our room into Australia together. We used a big piece of butcher paper spread out on the floor and each child drew an animal in the right place (tree, water, field, underground) in Australia.
• Boomerangs! An awesome invention for them to enjoy. We had "real" boomerangs (child safe boomerang toys purchased at a low price online) and learned about the invention.  Then cut out and designed our own.

Other books we liked

Adventures of Riley, Outback Odyssey by Amanda Lumry

A Wombat's World by Caroline Arnold

Adventures of a Little Wombat by Charles Fuge

Thirteen Buildings Children Should Know by Annette Roeder

 

Germany -

Castles and Grimm Brothers fairy tales!

 

The kiddos loved making their own castle towers to decorate the room.  They split into teams, were given supplies to share, a few suggestions, and then freedom to create their own, cooperative design!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other Activities

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  Royal Family Portrait - Fold paper and make a castle that opens to reveal the royal family! I drew and copied the template for them to figure out where/how to fold up to make the castle open.  They colored the castle and of course drew their own families inside.

 

• Castle Team Build Competition- We divided into several small group teams, and they cooperatively built a castle with given materials at each station in 5 minutes.  They rotated to new materials until each station was completed. A "winner" was chosen each round to get stickers.  We used different types of blocks (large and small,) magnets, dominos, and floam as building stations.  Fun!!

 

Centers

• Math/science/construction- Build a castle with a certain number of each different shape geometric block.
• Dramatic Play- Select a popular Grimm fairy tale to reenact roles (popular choices being, of course, "Rapunzel" and "The Frog Prince," but we also had some really like "The Elves and the Shoemaker.")
• Literature - sequence picture cards from fairy tales we have read.  create and/or tell fairy tale stories with felt board fairy tale sets, picture cards, puppets.