Homeschooling: 7 Continents for Animal Lovers!!

I knew from day one that if I involved animals in any way in a lesson, I'd have my son's full attention! So this lesson was perfect for him!!



We started out by printing a map of the world and naming the continents using this awesome song found HERE!
After we practiced the song a few times, I gave him a blank map in a sheet protector and the word strips and he placed the words on the correct continents. Then he wrote the words using a dry erase marker.




I am using the printables from The Homeschool Den and found the maps for free, and decided to pay the $2 for the animal cards because that seemed totally worth the time it would take to copy/paste animals together. And I love supporting other Stay at Home Moms!! We went through each stack of animals by continent, and then I shuffled them and laid out our big Discovery Map (Which also includes little cloth animals and labels for the continents and oceans! I LOVE it!) He placed the animals in the continents he thought they belonged in. Then we fixed any that were incorrect and talked about the type of climates, and why they would belong in that ecosystem.

It just so happened that he had a stack of animal books from the library (I love when that happens!) So we went through and found out where each animal lives, and he wrote simple sentences like:
"A tiger lives in Asia." for each of the animals.

Such a fun unit and definitely something he would enjoy reviewing from time to time when he needs a fun activity break- I'll pass him a map and the animal cards and he'll go to work placing them in the correct continents!!