Australia Map

A good idea for learning geography. Requires some drawing skill, a big table and a small number of kids to start off with. Kids work together to draw native animals and land marks they know about. They also use an atlas to locate and name the capital cities. This activity can be transferred to any country!

Thought for the day

Sand Art

We did a theme week on deserts and one fun and successful activity was sand art. It's a great way to add some texture to kid's work. It can get a bit messy but nothing a vacuum cleaner can't handle. We did desert landscape pictures


Materials

• Sand
• Glue sticks
• Coloured paper
• Scissors

Method

1. Using colours like yellow, orange and red create a desert scene.
2. Apply glue to where you want your sand to stick. I think it is better to limit the area where you stick sand as it creates a better effect, but if they want to do more that's all good too.
3. Quickly sprinkle sand on the glued areas and rub it in to make sure you get enough sand to stick.
4. Shake off the excess into your sand tub, or if you are a child the table or floor.
5. Stick on some detail such as cacti, camels, clouds or birds. Make it geographically specific to your area, if you live in a country with desert that is.

This one reminds me of the edge of Sahara, a massive dune looms in the distance.

Some of the kids decided that they didn't want to do deserts and wanted to do beaches instead. 

Child's Idea