In the Continent Box -- The World

Today is the start of the "In the Continent boxes" bloghop. I am SO excited that you are joining us for this bloghop, and I wanted to start things off with an introduction to geography/general resources for the world.

When my husband and I first started talking about teaching our son at home, the first thing that my husband did to support this effort was to buy us an interactive globe. It was about that time that I also discovered Montessori. After looking at numerous blogs, I decided that I was going to make my own felt map to go along with our interactive globe. The directions were here, but it seems that the links are no longer working.

The short version of how to do this is that I printed off 2 copies of a 5x5 sized map at Owl and Mouse, taped all the pieces together, and then cut apart the continents from one of the copies. I traced the continents (face down, so that the trace marks would not show) onto the felt. Once all of the pieces were cut out, I used the 2nd 5x5 map printout to use as a guide on where I needed to place each piece. Being a perfectionist, this took me somewhere around 2 months to create, as each piece had to be perfectly cut out and carefully placed EXACTLY where it should be, as shown on the 2nd printout. The one downfall is that Antarctica is not shown on the Owl and Mouse maps, so I haven't figured out how to add it yet... however, I do LOVE it! It has given us some great opportunities to talk about where things are located in relation to us, placing animals in their correct continents, etc.

As you see, my continents do not match the Montessori colors. Initially, I wanted my continents to match the globe we had purchased, rather than the Montessori ones. In hindsight, I should have stuck with the Montessori colors, as now my map colors do not match up with the printed resources that I have for each continent. Oh well!

What else do we have for reference?

- magnetic world map puzzle

- books on atlas, global cookbook, and landmarks/cultures around the world

If you would like to see what a others have done with the continent boxes and/or other geography curriculum, please check out the following links:

- my deserts of the world 3 part cards (free download) can be found here

- Montessori for everyone's Facebook page and main blog that show their continent boxes. They also have some great cards that are very affordable that can be used for the continent boxes.

- Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler created a really nice Christian-based geography unit that would complement any geography curriculum, and she also has a free download for animals around the world that goes with this curriculum.

- Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations has a ton of printables and ideas for geography as well.

See ya tomorrow for the first official continent box-- AFRICA!