Category: Geography

Cities, Cities Everywhere

11/17/2016

Cities are huge places, busy and so full of everything. Government workers, hospitals, emergency vehicles, transportation of all sorts. Families living, people working, running about their daily lives.

It can be a jumble of noise and confusion.

Now imagine that you have NEVER lived in a city and you have just moved there? Wouldn't you like to know more? Wouldn't you want to understand just what you have gotten yourself into? These books reviewed, should help.

I’m currently reading a book about a lad facing that exact scenario. He’s moved off a military base, a sheltered environment, with a smaller scope of people to interact with. He’s now living in New York city and he’s stunned by everything going around him. Would have been nice if he could have had The Cities Book (Lonely Planet Kids) and How Cities Work (Lonely Planet Kids). These two books, work together, to show how cities work and the beauty that can be found with them.

How Cities Work has been put together by James Gulliver Hancock.

It is a really well done lift the flap book.

Embark on a journey from the start of a city, a small gathering of buildings in the country with farms and wildlife all around. Through construction and work and organization gradually a city develops. Led through the building of roads and industry, superhighways, trains and parking lots.

We get to see people at work, people with families, shopping, moving, living. Tunnels being dug with large machines. Skyscrapers, parks, subways and more. If it's in a city, you'll find it in this book.

Every page with flaps to lift and/or pages to fold out

The Cities Book (Lonely Planet Kids) is a gorgeous book filled with a mixture of real life pictures and graphics to portray the beauty of cities from around the world. There are cities in this book from all over the world, every continent. Be amazed at the differences, similarities and all the amazing discoveries you can make.

Each page delineates clearly where it is located in the world, and gives the highlights of each city. For instance, Hong Kong is the Hollywood of the East, Montreal hosts the biggest bell in North America, in Addis Ababa Easter is celebrated with a meat feast and Seoul has taxis specially marked for those who don't speak Korean. Interesting facts from around the world.

Now don't you agree with me?

Wouldn't these be great books to introduce children (and others) to the wonders that make up cities... both in operation and what makes each one special. 86 Cities explored, countries from around this entire world.

This later book, the Cities Book, will be staying as part of our resource collection. As we travel around the world in our studies it will add a great dimension don't you agree?

Raincoast books has generously provided me with these books.
The Cities book is published by Lonely Planet Kids, is 212 pages long and is approximately 10 x 12. Good images and graphics, great text, good overview of 86 cities from around our planet.
How Cities Work is written by James Gulliver Hancock and also published by Lonely Planet Kids. 24 pages (feels like more) and 11 x 10 inches approximately. Lift the flap or open the page and discover all about how cities work.

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Art Series: Geography Through Art

10/26/2016

Please welcome Kym to my blog today. A displaced Canadian, lending a hand on my blog, helping to share one of her favourite art books. :) Pretty cool eh?

I'm so excited to be joining Annette today to tell you about one of our favorite resources that combines art and social studies. I discovered Geography Through Art by Sharon Jeffus and Jamie Aramini a number of years ago at a homeschool curriculum fair and thought it might come in handy at some point. What an understatement! It has turned out to be a great supplement for our social studies over several years , and provided inspiration for a co-op class I was able to co-teach. It could also be used as a full art curriculum or art-based geography curriculum. This book offers over 100 art projects using various media and techniques, and these projects are inspired by animals, landmarks, and traditional folk arts from all over the world.

The book opens with some general geography information and a couple of related projects - making an "aged" map, and a study of using negative space in art.

From then on, the projects are organized by continents and by the country that is the inspiration for each project. Not every country or culture is represented, of course, but the different regions of each continent are pretty well covered. Each chapter opens with a map of the continent, along with a summary of the geographical features and some other general information. The pages following give a little background information on the culture, history, or geography of the featured countries; and instructions for various art projects. The projects include sketching animals and landmarks; and other projects inspired by the folk art of the regions, so there is a variety of sculpture, painting, paper-cutting, print-making, collage, and carving. There are projects that are suitable for a range of ages and skill levels.

A feature called "Cultural Connection" appears throughout the book. These tidbits highlight how different cultures are related to each other in the folk art techniques. For instance, paper-cutting from China, from Poland, and from Mexico is discussed and the question of why paper-cutting is a popular art form across different cultures.

Whether you need an occasional art project to round out your geography or social studies coursework, or a year-long geography and art combination curriculum, I think Geography Through Art is worth a look. I hope you get as many great ideas from it as we have so far!

Kym is in her 19th year of homeschooling, and now has just one student, the oldest three having graduated. She and her husband of 29 years are Canadians transplanted to Maryland. Kym loves coffee, history, and homeschooling, and you can join her for coffee break at her blog, Homeschool Coffee Break.

Marsupial Gliders

3/28/2016

As my son and I were reading in our mammals book tonight we learned about a group of animals called "Marsupial gliders" of which there are three types: Sugar, pygmy and greater. My son asked "are they like flying squirrels mom?" We looked up all three before he settled to bed and we both though the faces of the greater were funny looking with their big ears so.. Let's learn about the Greater glider.

The greater glider, like other marsupials (barring the opossum) lives in Australia. They are the largest of the marsupial gliders...they can be up to 1 metre long, and of all the gliders are the most varied in their colour. Their colour can range from white to sooty grey, the northern greater gliders have brown with a tan belly.

The greater glider (also known as the greater gliding possum) is restricted to eastern portion of Australia.

A marsupial is an animal that carries it's young in a pouch, they live primarily in Australia. They can also be found in North and South America. They range from small four-footed forms like the marsupial mole to the large two-legged kangaroos.

The greater marsupial glider is classified differently than the rest of gliders being more closely linked with the ring-tailed possum.

It is a folivore, dining predominately on the leaves of the eucalyptus trees. It prefers to be live in old growth forests where it can hide among the leaves. Their scientific name is Petauroides volans. To learn more about the Greater Glider, please download the document below.

click on image to download

Sources.
Wildlife of QLD. Britannica. Berkeley Ed. Animal Diversity. IUCN Threatened Species. Wiki.

Science and Culture Around the World and at Home

3/13/2016

The Virtual Curriculum Fair is still going on. The theme this week is: Exploring Our World: Social Studies and more Science---includes history, geography, world cultures, worldview, biology, botany, geology, etc., etc., etc.

Full Definition of social studies

: a part of a school or college curriculum concerned with the study of social relationships and the functioning of society and usually made up of courses in history, government, economics, civics, sociology, geography, and anthropology

First Known Use of social studies1926
noun plural Definition of social studies

: the studies (as civics, history, and geography) that deal with human relationships and the way society works

This year for geography we are studying Europe. We started with a course called Drawing around the World: Europe. It was a fairly simple study that my son wasn't keen on doing due to the repetitive nature of the program so we morphed it into something else. We watch videos, we learn some facts, we ask questions, and we make a meal. We make the meals for the most part as fun as we can, inviting friends to come and join us and help create them. It's GOOD to do these things. We've done Finland, Sweden, Georgia, Russia, Iceland and Azerbaijan.

Studying Europe is fascinating because each country teaches us something new about the people. For instance in Azerbaijan, a predominately muslim country, they are open to other faiths practicing, while in Georgia they often have toasts when friends and families gather. Different things capture me and my son's attention which is good.

sci·ence
noun
noun: science
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

For science we do a couple of things
God's design series by Answers in Genesis.

click image to go to source :answers in genesis

We do at least one lesson a week, we strive for more, but often other things intervene like.. gardening, yard work, feeding the birds at the local provincial park, nature walks, learning about air movement with a fan, or whatever. It's all good. As long as somehow he's learning about the world and how it works from a scientific point of view it's all good.

On Fridays we do things a bit differently around here.
We learn about Canada. As we engage in our Canadian Studies we are doing art, watching videos. doing some geology (digging up gems/minerals and talking about them), science, math, history and whatever else I can squeeze into a morning. We try to combine as many things as we can on Fridays. Anything we can't work into our Canadian studies we do differently than the rest of the week (and sometimes (oh horrors) skip it completely). :) Newfoundland pt 1 and pt 2. Nova Scotia pt 1 and pt 2. It is by no means a speedy process but we'd rather enjoy the journey eh? :)

So that's a bit of a touch on what we do here for social studies and science. It's by no means the end all and be all, but it's a least a glimpse.

If you would like a glimpse of what others do as well, check out the links below (when I get them added!). :)

Yvie @ Gypsy Road - Bringing It to Life! History, Geography, & Science Jen Altman @ Chestnut Grove Academy - Virtual Curriculum Fair 2016: Exploring Our World, How We Do Social Studies and Life/Earth Science Laura @ Day by Day in Our World - Learning About the World Around Us Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses - Social Studies a Science of Relations Lisa @ GoldenGrasses - Exploring & Discovering Around the World Annette @ A Net In Time - Science and Culture Around the World and at Home Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break - Exploring History and Geography Laura @ Four Little Penguins - Going Around the World at Our Kitchen Table Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory - Our Tackling of the Social Studies and Science Kristen @ Sunrise to Sunset - Encouraging Curiosity about the World

Learning about Azerbaijan

3/4/2016

For the past three weeks the lad and I have been learning about Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is a country in Europe that is dwarfed by Russia, Turkey and Iran. It predominately a Muslim country were peoples of other religions are free to worship. They do a lot of oil, natural gas etc. The Capital City is Baku. They are divided into two areas...a larger land mass and then the area of Naxcivan.

The Music from Azerbaijan has a different sound than we are used to. We weren't quite sure what to make of it. We found the instruments intriguing. In fact my lad had us look them up as the spiked fiddle made him wonder if it could also be used as a weapon...and was disappointed that it was only a rest spot.

Azerbaijan food uses a lot of sherbet (a fruit based sweet drink), meat from mountain type animals (sheep goats etc) and fresh vegetable (like tomatoes).

One of the things that caught my lads attention about this land was their acceptance of other religions. In a day when we hear only of how Muslims are against people of other faiths, to find a Muslim based country that is tolerant was a "that's nice of them mom" moment for my son and I.

A short history of Azerbaijan, especially in relationship with the USA.

I found this funny After viewing the USA film I wondered if Canada had anything similar, and found this video about Sittlng Volleyball. My lad made me smile though... he saw the players coming on to the court and was horrified!

"MOM!! why did they do that? Why do they cut off their leg so they can play a game? Who would do that!!!!" I needed to explain to him that they didn't do that so they could play volleyball but that it was a way for people who got hurt to be able to have fun playing a physically active sport. His response then was "Oh, that was nice of them. It's good to play games mom. But I was wondering why anyone would let someone cut off their leg to play a game. I am glad it's not like that."

Tonight we had some friends come join us for our meal. A mom with her five children..   Her children were quite used to helping to cook so were quite eager to lend a hand.   We were so busy and talking so much I completely forgot to take pictures.

Items we made together:
Pan Kabab.   Ground lamb into a meatball. We were supposed to put them on skewers, but we just turned them into patties and cooked them up.   I made them without the sauce because it was getting on time to eat.ched almonds.

Milk Sherbet.   Sweetened milk.

Azerbaijani Plov. A pilaf.   Using basmati rice and blanched almonds.

Items I made ahead of time with my lad as the dough needed to set, or the food needed to steep or rest.

Mint Sherbet.   My son actually made this by himself.

Caraway Sherbet.   This was really good.   :)

Shekerbura.   These were a bit tricky to make, it took me some time to figure out how thin was just right and what size was ideal.   I made the rounds, the lad did the sealing.   Not as pretty as the professional ones, but turned out well.

Sticky Donut Fingers.     These were good. My son cooked them... his first time deep frying anything. I made the sauce but I didn't let it cook quite long enough.   Still tasted good. :)   The children really liked these.

I'll leave you with this last video.   Pretty horses.

Snow on the Ground, Tears in the Eyes

2/18/2016

I have to admit, this has NOT been a great homeschooling week. Been a combination of things setting us off.

1. Monday was Family Day here in Canada so we basically took the day off. We had a cart ride with some horses, visited with neighbours over cookies, watched a movie in the community and had pizza for supper. :)

2. Tuesday was odd...trying to remember why. OH.. NO ONE felt like doing school AT ALL. Tiredness or what. .Not sure what was at play but schooling with books was SO nt for us, so we worked on building mouse feeders instead. Project based learning is good too right?

3, Foodbank Day. So the lad does bookwork and helps out as needed. Normally we have a shipment come in but something got messed up so it didn't come in so the lad helped me with some organizing instead.

And that brings us to today.

Math... the lad was brought to tears today by math. It was odd. If I asked him the question he could do it in his head. Explain it all to me and everything, but doing it on paper simply wasn't working for him today. So we did four questions verbally and said "done". It was beyond frustrating for him .. I can see the answer mom but every time I try to write it down it's WRONG and it's NOT MY FAULT!!!! Seeing as he could do it verbally I had to agree that it wasn't his fault it was just a brain glitchy day.

Grapevine studies. We've started a new review for Grapevine. Working through the New Testament. I have to admit, the lad was simply having fun with drawing the characters today...i would show you up close what he was drawing but he begged me not to,but this image passed his inspection. I don't mind silliness as long as the message is getting through.

Geography. We changed this up a bit. The lad HATED drawing out the shape of the country. He could never get it perfect enough and it was driving him crazy, so now he has to find the country that we are studying and colour it in. This week we are learning about Azerbaijan. It's rather interesting how studies of other countries help us understand our own. How like many Azerbaijan's are Muslim by identity but not by belief. Much like Canada eh?

We did our reading together.   We covered Octopus/Squid; John Knox; Hudson (after whom Hudson bay is named for), Mrs. Quack; Two poems...one which just weirded me out (and the lad found interesting), and something else. :)

The lad did his narration, copywork (starting a new study on Astronomy), and... Logic of English.

I have to admit, we aren't following the lessons very well with Logic of English. We just aren't, if we do my lad stresses out too much, so we use their materials in our own way. Today we were working on knowing if phonographs have two letters or one. He had fun!   OH MY.   So nice to see my lad having fun with phonographs.   Our biggest battle is helping him figure out what things sound like... he gets that from me, its just the way it is. We often guess at how words sound and hubby is frequently correcting us both. :)

We also use the cards differently. I give him three cards per week to study, One of the cards always has a spelling list on the back and I'll randomly throughout the week ask him to spell words.   Keeps him practicing without adding the stress of "I HAVE TO BE PERFECT" to his day.

So that's our week/day. Tomorrow will be different again as we'll planning to be out of the house most of the day.

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Moving along to Georgia

2/6/2016

We have finished Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Russia. This week we have move along to Georgia (the country).

My son drew it's outline and found where it was located this past Tuesday.

Earlier we watched some videos. Just some short quick facts.

The Video below gave us ideas for the meal we plan to make: Dumplings, Grape Juice and flat bread. (shodi is how it sounds) We also saw a neat looking dessert but are unsure we'd have time to make it and let it dry.

Tonight we had some friends over for a meal from Georgia. We had a great time.

We made:
Georgian Cheese Bread. This was very good and I totally understand why it is an important part of Georgian Cuisine.
Kozinaki. Who would have thought a sunflower dessert could taste so yummy.
Khinkali. Dumplings! I've never had dumplings before. Tasted pretty good. My son liked the meat (but not the dumpling part), and one of our dinner guests thought the same, the rest of us liked them.

We had fun learning new skills and talking and working together. Good meal with good people learning a bit more about a different culture.

Pastels, Nova Scotia and John Constable

1/29/2016

Fridays are a day to celebrate being Canadian, to follow our hearts when it comes to our schooling, so sometimes our math gets done and sometimes... we explore the world.   As I type this my son is having fun with a fan, string and paper.     Observing air movement while having fun.   It's all good.    He just asked "MOM!   Can this be our science today???"       I told him I would think about it. :)

Before he did that though we spent time reading books (currently going through four books) and continuing our Nova Scotia studies.

We also like to do art on Fridays, and if we can find a way to combine the two so much the better.   I originally wanted to do an abstract art but my lad simply couldn't wrap his head around that. So we switched to pastels.

I gave my son a choice he could draw free hand or use a colouring sheet... He chose the colouring sheet.   He did a good job eh?    Took us a bit of time to determine the angle it was taken from... pretty sure from the water side.   He had fun experimenting with the pastels.   It was our first go with them.

I chose to work on a free hand style of Peggy's Cove.
Query.. How DOES on draw white so you can see it against a white background???? I chose to outline with black so it was visible but that's not really true to life. It came out kinda looking like a silo but I have no clue about how to draw edges with white and doing black lines just seemed wrong... So it is what it is eh? :)

As we coloured and talked we watched a variety of videos. From learning about the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, to how to shuck a scallop... did you know that parts of a scallop are poisonous??? This video was so interesting for my lad he actually STOPPED talking to watch it...and almost forgot to do his art as well. He thought it funny that Canada's oldest recognized flag became Canada's youngest flag. :)

We got our inspiration to do pastels from this handy little art book we keep around.

John Constable was an artist who loved doing pictures of the English Countryside. His paintings had a lot of sky in them. The art lesson connected his love of sky to using pastels to get shade and variations in landscapes by smudging the pastels together. I practiced this with the ground and a bit with the sky, the lad practiced this with blending the greys into his rocks.

Do take a look at the website linked above.. some of his works are just simply gorgeous. This one with the stormy sky really caught our eyes.

Welcome to Russia!

1/24/2016

My son and I continue to work our way slowly through our Drawing Around the World Curriculum: Europe curriculum that we reviewed this past year.

This week we made recipes from Russia.

We've done our video learning about Russia, drawn our maps and learned a few of the basic facts about Russia. Now it was time to eat some Russian foods.

We made three (had planned to do four but ran out of time).
Limonyk (lemon pie), Knishes, and Piroshki.

Lymonyck

Is a great pie. It is best served warm.

Ingredients:

250 gr/1 cup sour cream
113 gr/4 oz unsalted butter, melted
1/2 tsp baking soda
Approximately 2 cups of flour (start of with 1 and 1/2 cups of flour)
1 and 1/2 lemons (I prefer meyer lemons as they are just what needs to be used)
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk (optional)

For Directions on how to make it GO HERE.
It has excellent images to walk you through making it. It wasn't hard to make. Just lots of different parts. :) We found it easy to chop up the lemons rather than use a food processor.

Taylor's Piroshki

I find these excellent served cold or warm. Could totally see packing these along as a luncheon.
Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
ground black pepper to taste
dried dill weed to taste
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water

1 cup milk
3 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups oil for frying

Directions

Prep 1 h 30 m
Cook 20 m
Ready In 2 h

In a medium skillet over medium heat, cook the ground beef until evenly browned; drain. Stir in the onion and cook with the beef until translucent. Sprinkle in salt, pepper and dill weed to taste. Allow to cool before using.
Dissolve the yeast in the 1/4 cup of warm water and place in a warm location until frothy, about 10 to 15 minutes. In a medium saucepan over low heat, warm the milk and gently whisk in the eggs, oil, sugar and salt. Remove from heat.
Place half the flour in a large mixing bowl and gradually stir in the milk mixture. Then add the yeast solution alternately with the remaining flour, stirring after each addition. Mix well. Knead until the dough forms a ball and does not stick to the bowl. (Note: Start with the 4 cups of flour. You may need to add more, a little at a time, as you knead the dough). Cover the bowl with a clean cloth. Set in a warm location and allow to rise until doubled in volume.
Remove dough from bowl and place on a lightly floured surface. Pinch off pieces approximately the size of golf balls. Roll the pieces into disks about 3 1/2 to 4 inches in diameter.
Fill center of each disk with a heaping tablespoon of the cooled meat mixture. Fold disks over the mixture and firmly pinch edges to seal. Arrange on a flat surface and allow to sit approximately 10 minutes.
In an large, heavy skillet or deep fryer, heat the oil to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Deep fry the piroshki in batches until golden brown on one side; gently turn and fry the other side. Remove and let drain on a plate lined with paper towels.

Knishes
Ingredients

5 pounds baking potatoes, peeled and cubed
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large onions, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon salt
5 cups all-purpose flour, or as needed

I have to admit, I made ours different than the recipe. Same basic process but I made ours to look more like perogies in shape as that's what seemed to work best when working with a 10 year old.

Canada: Nova Scotia

1/22/2016

Today my son did our introductory work for Nova Scotia. I found this page from Crayola and printed it off and used it as the basis of some study.

As you can see on the page it talked about Canada's provincial flower. We learned more about the Mayflower here. and then had a chance to see a real one via video. We were amazed by the huge proboscis on the bee fly.

The Osprey in the provincial Bird. The Osprey is a fish eating bird. Therefore they are generally found around water... streams, lakes, oceans etc. The gripping pads on their feet help them hang onto their fish after they dive 9-30 metres into the water after them. it's rather neat... if osprey have to carry a large fish for quite some distance they will orient the fish so that it has the least wind resistance. :) Cool how God built that intelligence into them.

Bald eagles will share the same habitat with them, being larger they will often force an osprey to drop it's fish and take it for it's own meal. Osprey have a black stripe extending from their eye to their back, and it's one of the ways you can distinguish it from the bald eagle.

They have a staggered nesting season, which means in times of poverty the older bigger offspring eat while the smaller ones will starve.

My son really liked what happened in this video.

We filled in our Canada map showing where Nova Scotia was located and it's capital.

click on image to go to source

We also learned the history of the flag. The crest being from old Scottish roots. It is the St. Andrews cross in the reverse colours with the Scottish coat of arms. Nova Scotia stands for "New Scotland". For a brief period of time they used a different flag/coat of arms issued by Queen Victoria, but it was not well received, so the old flag and coat of arms was again put to use.