Africa

I have waited ALL YEAR LONG to do this unit.  The African Savannah is my favorite habitat to learn about personally.  My favorite animal of all time is the giraffe and I did part of my student teaching in Namibia, so I might be a teeny bit biased. I am teaching the savannah as a three-week unit, similar to my Hibernation unit.  The first week is centered around animals that live on the savannah.  The second week is about the plant life, specifically the Baobab tree.  The third week is about the kids in Africa. 

Week One: Savannah Animals

 Big Book: Giraffes are Peaceful helped set the tone.  Although we learned about many common savannah animals such as the zebra, gazelle, impala, cheetah, and hyena, the giraffe is my personal favorite so I had to spend some extra time on it.  I really emphasized what a giraffe needed to survive on the savannah, which is water and Acacia leaves.  When we watched part of the Lion King during snack time, tons of the kids were quick to point out which trees were Acacia trees in the film.  Amazing moment!!

I set up my personal Word Wall for this unit.  Typically I would only focus on vocabulary, but since this unit is quite personal to me, I put up pictures of my students from teacher over there.  I am doing extra to teach the kids about Namibia specifically.  They love looking at my photo album and this word wall to find their teacher!

One of the best centers is the Book Carpet.  I check out a ton of books on whatever subject we are studying at the time.  The books can be anything from non-fiction to picture books, from K to 4th grade level.  The kids get great exposure to words and pictures and love digging through tons and tons of books.  Here are two engaged readers sharing the experience together :)

The Book Carpet

As always, observation charts are a must on the first day of the unit to create interest.  I organized the photos into predators and herbivores so as to segway into the food chain.  This also lent itself to compare and contrast charts about the leopard versus the cheetah and the gazelle versus the impala.  Higher level thinking is always great!

Week Two: Baobab Tree