Free companion packet for Discover Africa!

We meet once a week in our homeschool co-op, and my allotted class time for our Africa class is only one hour. In order to give Discover Africa! the attention it deserves, I needed to have the class stretch over more than one semester, with perhaps a slightly longer class time. Sadly, due to our current life-limbo, we’re not sure if we’ll be here next semester. I just couldn’t commit to teaching for more than a 12 week period.

Thus, my smaller notebooking packet was born. This one is a totally free download for you!

Our family absolutely adores the Geography Songs CD by the Troxels. By simply playing the songs in the car any time we went anywhere, my entire family has memorized the catchy tunes and can name all the countries and major islands in the world. Combined with our kitchen table world map, my kids are acing geography.

Deciding to create my simplified Africa course using the songs as a major ‘spine,’ I dug out the book that comes with the CD. Most of the songs have their own map so you can learn where the countries are as you learn the songs. However, probably because Africa is so large, there is only one map for the continent. Trying to find all the countries as you sing the songs can be a bit confusing.

I went to work editing and altering some of Daniel Dalet’s fantastic maps to make some notebooking pages that would work with the songs. First we have a map of the whole continent and all the countries mentioned in the songs. It’s up to date with notes on Western Sahara and South Sudan (note: the songs don’t include South Sudan).

Then I have a page for each song. The countries mentioned in that particular song have their names on the map, while the rest of the continent remains blank. That way the child gets a good feel for where the country is on the continent as they learn the lyrics.

In our co-op class, the kids will color in each country as we learn the song:

We’ll spend class time singing the song, coloring the pages, and visiting a few countries from each region through pictures, passports, crafts, costumes, and sampling exotic food dishes.

I hope, through singing, doing lots of hands on activities, and the visual act of coloring, the kids will leave my 12 week course with a new familiarity for African geography.

This sweet little 7 page packet is a great companion to its big brother, Discover Africa! but can also be used on its own. Either way, I highly recommend purchasing Kathy Troxel’s Africa Songs. I’ve linked up to Amazon, rather than the Troxel’s website as Amazon allows you to purchase single mp3 tracks. So if you’re focusing on Africa, buy just the Africa songs! There are six of them, and they are catchy and easy to learn.

Note: We quickly insert a fast SOUTH SUDAN after Sudan in the Northern Central Africa song :o)

When I emailed the Troxels to make sure it was okay to distribute this file for free, Kathy wrote back to give me her permission and said:

You have done a fantastic job! This is a great way to reinforce the lyrics of the songs.

Please do what you have requested.

Blessings,
Kathy Troxel

Yay! Thanks Kathy.

Where to Download

I’m slowly building up kind of a little storefront for my homeschool printables. Head over there to download the free Companion Packet for Africa, and I hope you really enjoy it!

Coming soon: Out of this World! An updated view on the solar system including 13 planets… and then? Onto the rest of the continents.

Coming sooner… a post about my garden :o)

Happy Thursday!