We’ve been studying African kingdoms of the past with the kids and we’re thrilled to share what we learned with you! It’s fascinating (and tragic) to me that Africa is the largest of all the inhabited continents and yet it is largely overlooked in history programs for kids.

In fact, I use the “What Your ____th Grader Needs to Know” series with our children and there is no mention of African history outside of Egypt until fourth grade. This means that kids are first introduced to Sub-Saharan African history with a discussion of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

I feel that initially presenting Africa in the light of slavery tends to bias children to the beauty and historical significance of African rulers and people. We’ve decided not to cover the subject in that way with our children and we’ve found out some incredible things so far.

For starters, Africa is so much more than poverty, oppression, and slavery. In fact, these things were fairly uncommon until colonialism started. So before we got into our lesson about African Kingdoms with the kids, we decided to learn more about the African continent – as it is today.

Take a look at this Introduction to Africa lesson plan you can share with your kids too! And if you want to learn even more about Africa with your children, don’t miss our African Kingdoms printable unit study!

Introduction to Africa Lesson Plan for Kids

Let’s begin by tackling some common misconceptions about Africa.

The original name of Africa is not “Africa”!

First, did you know that Africa was not originally called Africa? That name was based on the name “Afri“, which was a Latin name given to the inhabitants of Carthage by the Romans in the second century B.C.E.

In fact, the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio was renamed Scipio Africanus after his victory against Hannibal at Carthage at the end of the century, because the name “Africa” was only used to denote the area surrounding the indigenous people who lived in and around Carthage at the time.

Somehow over the centuries, the name Africa was expanded to refer to the entire continent, but that was not the name that the inhabitants of Africa used. There is some disagreement about what the original name for Africa was, but some say that the original name was “Al-kebulan“, which is an Arabic name meaning “Land of the Blacks”.

How big is Africa?

After finding out that the name of Africa wasn’t even originally Africa, we had to re-examine our entire view of the area. We decided to sift through popular images of Africa and compare them to the reality of life on the largest continent on Earth.

The free resource “Exploring Africa” by Michigan State University is an excellent introduction to African culture, history, and geography. We started with the beginning exercises about the size of Africa and the common portrayals of Africa in popular culture.

We also found an incredible graphic showing the enormous size of the African continent:

Africa is a Culturally Rich, Civilized Continent

What kind of landscape comes to mind when you hear the name “Africa”? Do you think of people who live in huts? Do you picture extreme poverty and dirty surroundings? Those are the images commonly used in the media. And Africa does have poor people and slums. (Like literally every other continent, except Antarctica.)

I live in the U.S. and if I wanted to show the U.S. as a country of poor, impoverished people, I’d have no trouble finding photographs to support that story. We see homeless people in our area on a regular basis. So it’s unfair to paint this as a situation that’s unique to the African continent.

African countries have huge cities, beautiful buildings, and incredibly rich historical sites.

Antananarivo, Madagascar

Cape Town, South Africa

Kampala, Uganda

Marrakesh, Morocco

Nairobi, Kenya

Windhoek, Namibia

The People of Africa

The Exploring Africa lesson plan makes an excellent point that I had not previously realized. Most of the images of Africa in modern culture are either of animals, nature, or buildings. The people of Africa are not widely highlighted, unless they are shown looking malnourished or unhappy.

When I thought back to my childhood, I realized that this was definitely true when I was growing up. Of course, it’s important to publicize the extreme poverty that ravages much of Africa, but those images are not representative of life for all Africans. Seeing those pictures over and over can make us feel that life in Africa is miserable for everyone, which is not true.

Here are some of the images of Africans we shared with our kids:

Young Men in Ethiopia

Mother and Children in Angola

Young Maasai Women

Ugandan couple

Best Friends

 The Natural Wonders of Africa

We also discussed the incredible diversity of geography on the African continent. Utah State University hosts a very thorough resource list of Africa lesson plans and we explored one to learn about the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa.

Here are a few of these natural wonders:

Victoria Falls

Table Mountain

The Serengeti Plains

Books and Resources about Africa

Here are some of the resources we used for this lesson. They’re definitely worth a look. (Affiliate links are listed below. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• University of North Carolina: How Do We Represent Africa? – A free PDF file with color pictures of life and nature scenes from Africa. Great for broadening common views of Africa to include people of all kinds.
• Afrobets: First Book About Africa by Veronica Freeman Ellis
• Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions by Margaret Musgrove

Learn even more about Africa with these learning activities!

Ready to dive into the royal history of Africa? Don’t miss our African Kingdoms unit study! It’s packed with unit activities to help elementary kids learn about the rich and regal history of African kingdoms!

>>> African Kingdoms Elementary Unit Study <<<

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This post is part of the Autumn 2013 Hopscotch from the women of iHomeschool Network! Click below to see the Hopscotch posts from all of our fellow bloggers!

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Our kids, like just about all kids, love LEGO blocks. Love them. But I never had the idea to combine LEGO building with writing. Renee Brown from Great Peace Academy did, though, and she’s put together some adorable LEGO writing prompts printable packs for just $1 each! We got the chance to try them out with the kids and they had so much fun building and writing their own stories!

Well, okay, Pooh and Roo didn’t exactly write their stories. But they did invent them and narrate them to me, so that’s good.

After some due deliberation, the kids started creating their stories. Pooh’s picture showed a LEGO figure on a project that looked kind of like an airplane. Here’s his story:

James is flying an airplane on a solo trip. He’s going to the airport and he’s coming from where he lives in Georgia. He had a good time. He works at the airport.

He’s a big fan of James from Thomas & Friends, so any male figure in his story is always named James.

Roo’s picture showed a LEGO figure on a vehicle that had a steering wheel but no wheels. Here’s his story:

He’s at the park sliding. He is driving a car that doesn’t need wheels. He drives his sliding car around the park on the grass.

For Tigger, I used one of the blank Lego writing prompts that allows kids to make their own creation and write a story to go along with it. Here’s Tigger’s story:

“The Man Who Built the House”

One day a carpenter named Charlie woke up. He was living with his sister. Finally, Charlie told his sister at breakfast, “I’m tired of living here. I want to build my own house.” His sister said, “Alright, I wish you well.” So after breakfast, Charlie packed his clothes, loaded his car, and was on his way. He said good-by to his sister before he left.

As he drove along, Charlie said to himself, “I’d better go to a shop for some tools.” So he saw a shop nearby called “The Five and Ten.” He went in and purchased some fine tools. Soon he was on his way again.

Suddenly, he found some nice, sturdy ground. So he parked on the side of the road. He got out and grabbed his toolbox. He got to work. It took a couple of weeks, but a very nice worker across the street helped him. Soon it was up in no time. Charlie thanked the builder for his help. Soon he got a job and lived in his own house.

The End

P.S. If he felt lonely, he would phone his sister.

And there’s her LEGO creation! The house that Charlie built.

We loved creating with Renee’s LEGO Printables! If you’d like to get some for yourself, visit Great Peace Academy to pick them up for just a dollar each!

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If you’re searching for ways to teach American Sign Language for homeschoolers, check out some of these great ASL resources!

10+ American Sign Language for Homeschoolers Resources

ASL2U is our virtual ASL tutoring service. We’ve completed our very first downloadable lesson and you can grab it now for just $1.99! The lesson includes more than 20 color signs and a complete practice conversation to help you learn to introduce yourself and meet someone in sign language!

To get your copy of ASL2U Lesson 1, visit our Store!

Here are even MORE great American Sign Language for Homeschoolers resources!

A Basic Course in American Sign Language

Sign Language: My First 100 Words

My First Book Of Sign Language

Sign Language for Kids: A Fun & Easy Guide to American Sign Language

Learn to Sign the Fun Way!: Let Your Fingers Do the Talking with Games, Puzzles, and Activities in American Sign Language

The American Sign Language Puzzle Book

American Sign Language for Beginners – Flashcards: Animal & Colors Pack (Incl. ASL + English + Spanish)

American Sign Language for Beginners – Flashcards: Action & Opposites Pack (Incl. ASL + English + Spanish)

American Sign Language Bingo Game – Super Duper Educational Learning Toy for Kids

400 American Sign Language Cards Fun Deck

Learn more about teaching sign language to kids!

American Sign Language Alphabet Flashcards

Sign Language Weather Fingerspelling Pack

Sign Language Number Flashcards

And don’t forget to follow my American Sign Language lessons board on Pinterest!

This post is part of the “Foreign Languages for Your Homeschool” linkup from iHomeschoolNetwork! Click on over to read how our fellow bloggers teach foreign languages to their families!

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Happy Monday! We’re participating in the Multicultural Kid Blogs “Read Around the World” summer series for a chance to share a multicultural book that Jay and the kids first learned about on Reading Rainbow – Jambo Means Hello!

This book takes readers through the entire Swahili alphabet using common Swahili words for phrases such as “welcome” (karibu), “mango” (embe), and “friend” (rafiki). Along with listing the alphabet words, the book explains a bit about what each term means in East African culture. Fun fact! Even though the languages are different, the Swahili alphabet goes from A to Z just like the English alphabet!

Since the phrases are so simple, this book is great for pre-readers and elementary readers from ages 3 to 8. It’s also a perfect introduction to a unit study about the Swahili language or a unit about East Africa. Check out Jambo Means Hello on Amazon by clicking the image or link below!

Jambo Means Hello: Swahili Alphabet Book (Picture Puffin Books)

The “Read Around the World” Summer Series will be continuing all summer long! Be sure to stop by Multicultural Kid Blogs to read all of the previous posts and learn about what is coming up next!

To catch up on all the posts, follow the Read Around the World Summer Reading Series board on Pinterest!

Follow Multicultural Kid Blogs’s board Read Around the World Summer Reading Series on Pinterest.

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This week, we’re learning more ASL signs for food to add to the food signs we covered last time. In this lesson, you’ll find the signs for:

• Soda pop
• Sandwich
• Pasta
• Candy
• Cream
• Cheese
• Pie
• Turkey
• Butter
• Egg
• Salt and pepper
• Salad
• Oil
• Sauce

We hope you like this lesson on ASL signs for food! And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you can watch all of our ASL lessons whenever you like!

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Hi all! We’re co-hosting the Poetry Celebration and Contest over at Preschool Powol Packets today! All month long, the co-hosts have been sharing great tips for introducing poetry to kids and we’re wrapping up the series today with a look at the work of Shel Silverstein. We decided to examine poetry with the Shel Silverstein book A Light in the Attic.

As we read the book, we noticed that some of the poems followed a certain rhythm pattern and some did not. For example, in the poem “How Many, How Much?” every other line rhymed. In the poem “Fancy Dive”, though, every line rhymed. We spent a little time writing two-line poems as a family using the section on poetry in Brain Quest Workbook: Grade 3.

We ended up with these:

“There once was a flea

Who wanted to ski” (Pooh)

“There once was a crow

Who played with Play-Doh” (Roo)

We also discovered that poems can change patterns. The Shel Silverstein poem “Tired” changes patterns from every other line rhyming to every line rhyming. Tigger used one of the poetry planning pages from the School Zone Second Grade Big Workbook to design a poem of her own that changed patterns. Here’s her poem called “My Family”.

“Friends don’t know about my family

And they don’t know about me.

My family is so cool!

It is probably better than being in a pool.

Love and hugs and kisses galore!

You know, they’re so kind. They even help me when I fall on the floor!” (Tigger)

We also learned about how poetry can make use of onomatopoeia. On page 58 of A Light in the Attic, we read the poem “Eight Balloons” and noticed the use of the sound effect “POP!” as a sound effect and a rhyming word. We talked about how onomatopoeia allows us to use sounds as words, and then we made our own poem using onomatopoeia.

We jotted down the sound effects first and then put them into a poem called “The Wind”.

“With a roar,

The wind went WHISH!

The kites went WHOOSH!

And the leaves went SHISH!”

The kids spent most of the rest of the day inventing their own rhymes, so I’m counting this as a successful creative writing lesson.

During the Poetry Celebration and Contest, you and your kids can submit original works for a chance to win some great prizes! If you’d like to enter to win some of the great prizes in the Poetry Celebration and Contest, you can enter via the Rafflecopter widget below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The following companies are sponsoring the Poetry Celebration and Contest!

Discover With Dr. Cool:

Be sure to stop by and visit all of the co-hosts of the Poetry Celebration and Contest!

Preschool Powol Packets ~ Homeschool Encouragement ~ Brave Writer’s Life in Brief ~ Word Traveling ~ The Measured Mom ~ Wildflower Ramblings ~ Line Upon Line Learning ~ Teach Beside Me ~ Living to Learn ~ Vicky Arnold Blog ~ School Time Snippets ~ Creekside Learning ~ Are We There Yet ~ Look at What You Are Seeing ~ Look! We’re Learning! ~ Our Homeschool Studio

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If you’ve been following along with our blog for a while, you’ve probably caught on to a recurring theme in our Living History series for the past few months. We’ve learned about Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Miles Davis so far. Naturally, we’re focusing on giants of jazz! Of course, we can’t do a jazz series without talking about Duke Ellington, so he’s our focus for March.

I’m a little more familiar with Duke’s work than I have been with the previous artists in the series. I’ve heard his music pretty often. In fact, “In a Sentimental Mood”, which is one of my favorite jazz songs ever, was on an episode of The Cosby Show. I’ve loved that song ever since.

 We’ll be learning more about Duke Ellington’s life, career, and legacy this month, and we’ll be using some of the books below to help the kids get to know his music.

Books about Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra

Duke Ellington: His Life in Jazz with 21 Activities (For Kids series)

Duke Ellington (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Composers)

Stay tuned to find out how you can grab our Duke Ellington Biography Unit!

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In this video, we cover the signs for:

• Family
• Mother
• Father
• Brother
• Sister
• Son
• Daughter
• Grandmother
• Grandfather
• Aunt
• Uncle
• Cousin (male/female)
• Niece
• Nephew

You can watch the full tutorial below! And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for even more ASL lessons!

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I was reading through one of our science workbooks and found this super easy Coffee Can Condensation Science Experiment, so we got to work!

Coffee Can Condensation Science Experiment

We picked up the workbook Science Projects & Experiments: Grade 2-3 at Target a while back, but I’d totally forgotten about it. (It was recently unearthed during a School Supply Scavenger Hunt.) One of the experiments in the book uses a coffee can, salt, and ice to create frost.

What often puts me off from science experiments is that they often seem to consist of things I don’t have on hand. I just happened to have an empty coffee can, though, so this was perfect!

We put several ice cubes in the can, then added 1/2 cup of salt.

Tigger stirred the ice and salt together, then closed the lid.

The experiment instructions said to observe the can at 10 minutes, 20 minutes, and 30 minutes to observe what would happen. After 10 minutes, I looked at the can and wondered why nothing was happening.

Then I realized that we’d never see anything with the wrapper still on it. Duh, Selena.

This was 20 minutes in. Frost was clearly developing on the outside of the can.

Not only was frost developing, but there were a few drops of water at the base.

After 30 minutes, the entire bottom of the can was frosted over. As the book explained, the ice inside the can made the outside of the can extremely cold. As water vapor in the air touched the can, it immediately condensed and froze, becoming frost. Pretty neat!

Tigger wanted to see what happened to the ice inside the can. We observed that the ice was melting, because of being mixed with the salt – which explains why road crews are always using salt to de-ice roadways!

This was a super quick and simple experiment, but Tigger loved it. So I’ll count that as a homeschooling win.

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