I finally have the beginning's of my Continent Boxes for our Geography Center! I am so excited about this as I know the dear children are going to really thrive with their Geography studies as in the past, they have just been so-so!
My inspiration comes from the VERY Creative and industrious Theresa of Lapazfarm Homelearning and the wonderful set-up that Jennifer of Wildflowers and Marbles has created in her learning room, not to mention all the wonderful ladies at the 4Real Montessori Fourms!
We start with an empty white box from Michael's (these came nesting with two smaller boxes I have yet to decide what to use for, but I assure you, they will come in handy!)
I wanted to do something elaborate on the box lid, but for now we will settle for the Continent and a few stickers. I think I will have the kids add to it with pictures or stickers as we discover more about each Continent, then it will be more decoupage looking!
I have quite a few coins that I collected in Europe and these will naturally go into the Europe box!
This nifty little caddy (only $1) and you can be assured that I picked up SEVERAL, will be just great for our Continent work and especially TOOB animals storage! Here I have a set of Biomes Cards with Animals to match. (Still need to pick up the Arctic Toob). Don't miss Andrea's post at Gray Family Circus for some great inspiration on how to use your Toob Animals!! (I LOVE her Felt World Map)
These Landforms Cards were a very generous gift from Alison's Montessori and we LOVE them!!! I have them here with the Elementary Landform Definitions that I printed off at Montessori Materials.
These were so fun to put together and I know the kids can't wait to get at them!! I saw this initially at the NAMC site sample lesson plans and finally got around to getting it together! It'll be a blast with colored blue water, sea and land animals, people and perhaps some small trees and bushes to add! And check these plans out too, we'll be doing this as well!!
Pin Maps to go with each Continent are currently stored in the second smaller white box (that came nesting) and I'm thinking I may glue each Cork piece into the top underside lid of each box and then fill the boxes with extra Continent Stuff, like Toob Animals, Flags, a Music CD representative of some of the countries in that Continent, extra Three-Part Cards, Fabrics....the ideas could go on forever here!
And last, but certainly not least, here is our Geography Cabinet, compliments of my dear, sweet and so very generous parents (Thanks M & D) and was found at none other than Alison's Montessori!!! We LOVE it, I can't say enough good things about it, it's going to be a very integral part of our Geography learning this year, pivotal, if you will!!! Don't you just LOVE the Globes!! My kiddos are thrilled to have them! The thing I love most about this great cabinet is it's compact size and it's ability to hold all of our Geography materials in a neat-and-tidy kind of way! All it needs, it a big basket of Geography books next to it, and Viola!! Geography Central!
We will also be using many of the resources I have listed in our Geography Lesson Plans from last year!! I hope you'll follow along our Trail as we blaze along with some Great Geography!! Thanks for visiting today, many blessings to you!
That looks fantastic! I really like the wooden caddy, and the fabulous idea of gluing the pin map to the box lid! You could put some little pin flags in the box, too! I am going to be home soon and I can't wait to get started putting everything together, too!
Posted by: Theresa | Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 01:29 PM
You are slightly out of control woman, but I LOVE it!
Posted by: Marianne | Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 01:42 PM
This is wonderful. I want to come to your homeschool!
Posted by: Mary Ellen Barrett | Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 02:01 PM
Marianne's comment above is hysterical!
Looks wonderful, Meredith! Great job!
Posted by: SuzanneG | Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 02:18 PM
Wow! LOL You have been working hard!
Posted by: Angel | Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 02:30 PM
I was just checking out your site again with my son. We are going to be doing a world geography theme this year. Your ideas look so good I may have to "borrow" some of them. We will be starting in with some of our ideas this week. I hope you check in we will be doing lots of wonderful arts and playing games. Of sourse Sammy's favorite, Baking. Have a great day
Posted by: Heather | Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 02:39 PM
You go, girl! and go and go and go and go!!!! Everything looks great!!! You're going to have a fabulous school year! Your children are very blest!
Posted by: betty | Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 02:47 PM
Beautiful! Just beautiful!
Posted by: Andrea | Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 05:03 PM
Meredith, this is just wonderful! Since Gregory's birth in March, I've only slowly been adding more of my favorite blogs into my reading and I was so excited to come back and find these posts. We are in the middle of transforming our learning room into a Montessori space and I think your ideas are just phenomenal. I look forward to going back through your archives and reading more about your planning. Right now I'm trying to fill out our math center. It's so much fun and the children love it. I can't wait to get to geography after reading this wonderful post. Thank you for taking the time to share it with us.
Posted by: Katherine in TX | Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 07:24 PM
Holy Cow! This is all so awesome.
Posted by: divina | Wednesday, August 01, 2007 at 10:35 AM
Beautiful, Meredith!
Posted by: Kim | Sunday, August 05, 2007 at 07:32 AM
How did "nifty little caddy" come to be with you? ;o) I would love a few myself!
As always, great post!...where do you find all the time?!
Posted by: Donna Marie | Sunday, August 05, 2007 at 02:34 PM
What did you use to make the land in the landforms? It looks like clay. But did you bake it? Or does it stay clay-like? How do you get it to adhere to the plastic tub? I've wanted to make these for some time but can't figure out how to do it.
Posted by: Kim | Wednesday, May 07, 2008 at 08:30 PM