Dunes in the Desert

Week 2 of Discover the Desert with Mother Goose Time is about the Sahara.

We took a trip with our imaginations to Africa by visiting airpano.com. This isn't the Sahara desert, but we watched a video of the Namib Desert in Namibia instead. We looked at the dunes and how few plants there are. Air Pano video here After we watched that, we looked at pictures of the Sahara on google and found camels, palm trees, a snake and a scorpion in the photos. We came to the conclusion that not very many plants and animals could survive in the Sahara's climate. They had to be really good at having little to no water for quite some time.
The boys explored how dunes are made by blowing sand around through a straw. Extra MGT materials come in handy, even a few months later. I've been saving the left over sand from other crafts and today I'm glad that I had. Mr Z blew the sand all over the place. Mr A made craters and a Grand Canyon. I made letters in the sand.

Then we added ice cubes to the sand to see what would happen. It sticks! The sand sticks to the ice. Mr A noticed right away. Then the boys left it and the ice melted throughout the day. They kept coming back to check on it to play in the soupy sand.

MGT always provides at least one board game in the curriculum. This one was a Race to the Oasis. You had to collect or give away canteen card depending on what space you landed on on your trail. It even came with a different die than usual, which was extremely exciting. It had written numbers, 2 of each number 1 to 3. We have quite the collection of regular dice from all of the MGT games we've gotten over the months.

To survive in the desert, humans have to bring their own water. A good way to hold water is in a canteen. Mother Goose Time provided materials to make a canteen prop. The boys painted two small paper plates. They had to dry for some time since they, of course, got carried away with the paint.

After their canteens were dry and we finally got around to finishing them, they turned rather cute. I stapled the circles together after folding and overlapping the edges for a top. I put a hole on either side to tie the yarn and then we glued the paper cup to the flat part to make the lid of the canteen.

The boys have been having fun with all of their cowboy props and taking trips to the desert for an adventure.

FYI... so sorry for my horrible picture taking skills. I am not at all a photographer and do feel they are not at all of any good quality.

PYRAMIDS

Today we filled the morning with activities relating to Egyptian pyramids, mummies and camels. Mother Goose Time provides a paper puzzle every month. A is fanastic at them. When he finished, we observed how tiny the people and camels looked in the picture compared the giant pyramids. we located where pyramids were located on our picture maps too that are hung around the house.

i cut out some triangles from spare cardboard and let the boys decorate them with do-a-dot paint markers. they sure do have fun slamming those things around. i also found some pyramid self-adhesives from orientaltrading.com. so, those were added to few of the triangles. With some patience, i glued them together to make our own pyramid. A is proud of it.

the boys colored a page in the MGT passports then used more do-a-dots to decorate their color page.

included in todays packet was a camel puppet craft. i took the boys to the bathrooms and we imagined the tubs filled with water. we talked about the difference between humans and camels and how much they can drink at one time. camels can drink a bathtub full of water and we can usually only drink one glass. it was a do-a-dot day... A used them again to color his camel. And of course, the boys needed googley eyes and pyramid adhesives to add to their puppets.

i touched a little bit on Ancient Egypt using out Safari Ltd Toob. we played with play-doh for quite some time. we made imprints and pyramids. A worked on matching the figurine to the imprint for a little while also and made an ancient egypt city.

mummies are wrapped in guaze then put into the pyramid in a special case. A practiced mummifying some stuffed animals... but you cant talk about mummies without being one yourself. so, the boys got dressed up too and sat in the mummy case.

to finish our day about Egypt we looked at my new resource site AirPano and observed real life photos of the pyramids in Giza.

A says he learned that camels drink a lot of water at once and store it in their hump.

For putting this lesson together this morning, it was really fun. i havent been feeling well lately. my patience is thin, but we learned a lot together and i am glad that i forced myself to put the activities together.

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Waterfalls

The end of the week got away from us as far as MGT goes. We were busy and life happened. The boys had things going on and i tried a few new classes too. Anyway, we just got around to Day 14: Victoria Falls. 

I put up the crepe paper that was provided, in the hallway entry to resemble a waterfall. (Z had unrolled some of it anyway while i wasn't paying attention.) The boys had fun running through it for a few minutes though.

I found an amazing site of aerial panoramic still shots set to music. (AIR PANO) We looked at waterfalls from around the world and observed their differences and similarities. We even found a picture with a canyon. (waterfalls around the world) I enjoy seeing how A cross references things that he has previously learned.... I love finding real life photos and videos to incorporate into the activities and lessons. So this site is perfect.

A and Z made their waterfall wand craft. I helped Z glue the pieces together, of course. They were distracted so getting them to participate was a trick. But they turned out cute and are displayed on our front door along with our other Mother Goose Time crafts.

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