Africa Unit, Week Two

Wow, just wow, you guys.

I honestly find that my kids tend to ease into the first week without any issues. Then, kaboom! Week two is filled with meltdowns, whininess and general normal kid stuff. So that’s been a thing this week. Mama is looking forward to the girls night out on Friday 😂.

In all seriousness though, I don’t allow that in our classroom. The fruits of the spirit has no place for anger, unkindness, or ungratefulness, and so that has to go. I think we are starting to key into that now, after some much needed reminders, constant fresh air, and prayer together. SO important. How do you start the day with your children?

We start at the same time each morning with a good morning greeting, a hug, some essential oils in the diffuser, and a prayer. Then we do our morning basket. This changes depending on what we are working on, but recently here are some things that fit into our morning basket:

• Sunday School homework
• The weekly memory verse recitations.
• A book or novel that fits the days’ lessons.
• Our gratitude journals.
• Beowulf Grammar

Week Two of Africa was a bit more heavy! I find that often I do have to be really mindful of what I add into the curriculum. Especially important is breaking it up with some videos and activities for my kids that actually put them in that country. It’s impossible to talk about it without seeing it with our eyes. This week, we learned about Niger, Mali, Cape Verde, and Nigeria!

Highlights from Niger:

• Animal: The Addax. We learned about the Addax’s incredible ability to get water from plants only! Wow!
• Book: Galimoto by Karen Lynn Williams, which gave the boys a deep appreciation for the ingenuity and creativity of children who have far less “things” than they do.
• Socials: We learned about another indigenous people in Africa called the Tuareg people! We spent sometime defining what a caravan is.
• Food: We made African Beef Stew together using this recipe.

Highlights from Mali:

• Animal: The West African Crocodile
• The land: We learned about the city of Timbuktu (who knew it was more than a goofy saying?!) and how it was a center for learning and trade long ago. We watched some pretty cool videos about the ancient manuscripts that are being restored and catalogued.
• Social issues: We watched some hard things today! The boys learned about what child labour is and how in Mali they allow young children to mine for gold. It was a healthy discussion and we talked about some difficult subjects about why we choose to buy things that are ethically sourced so we don’t become part of the problem.
• Activities: We painted some wooden crocodiles as our craft. I found these at the Dollar Store. They even came with paints and a paintbrush!

Highlights from Cape Verde:

• Animal: The Manatee
• Land: We really enjoyed watching some tourism videos on Cape Verde. It’s extremely beautiful. We all agreed that it would be the perfect vacation spot! It definitely went on mom’s bucket list! 😂
• Social discussions: Cape Verde has a terribly dark past that had to be opened. I really think it is so important to share these historically terrible things with our children so that they develop empathy and work towards doing better in the future. We learned about the African slave trade and how Cape Verde was the hub for this. There are some fabulous videos that teach this far better than I can such as this one: The Life of an Enslaved Person. The boys had good discussions about how money is the root of all evil, and how we must treat others the way we would want to be treated.
• Food: Micah and I made a slightly more difficult recipe together, Pastels. My kids really do not love fish, but they did enjoy these. Much of Cape Verde food has seafood in it. The boys said they were good with ketchup 😂. Recipe here. We chose to bake them instead of fry them!

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Highlights from Nigeria:

• Animal: Drill Monkey
• History and Culture: We spent a lot of time enjoying the beautiful bold colors of Nigerian traditional dress and also music! We listened to some traditional music during class.
• Food: We finished off our busy week with watching Mark Wier try some West African food. The boys really love his fun tours of different countries and I highly encourage his Vlog’s on Youtube. Always clean and fun!

That’s pretty much it for Week Two! We are doing a fun day tomorrow making African Mud cloth art, but I’ll post that next week.

May you be blessed and have a beautiful rest of the week.

Naomi xo