Montessori Continent Boxes: Australia

I finally finished the Australia box for Mr. B. We spent about a month on the Antarctica box. In hindsight, I spent way to much time putting Antarctica together, adding resources that Mr. B was not ready to discuss. His favorites were the penguin mask, the Arctic Toob and the Earth ball. He didn't want to watch the DVDs which I included but we ended up watching The Penguins of Madagascar several times on Netflix.

This time with Australia, I kept it simple and only added resources that I'm sure Mr. B will enjoy and learn from. 

Printables 

• Australia from Wikipedia
• Australian flag 
• Australian currency 
• World Map (for Mr. B to practice finding and coloring in Australia)
• Photos of wildlife from Imagine Our Life 
• Landmarks 

 Books and Toys

• Kippy Koala by A.J. Wood and Maurice Pledger (Mr. B loves Maurice Pledger's other books): this is a lift the flap and pop-up book. 
• Australia (Rookie Read-About Geography) by Allan Fowler: borrowed from the library 
• Earth Ball (found at Michaels for $2): reused from the Antarctica box 
• The Land Down Under TOOB (found at Michaels for $6 after 40% off coupon). 
• Baby Kangaroo at Home in the Outback by Jennifer Boudart 
• The Australia pieces from the Melissa and Doug World Map puzzle. 

The Rescuers Down Under movie is available on Netflix so we will watch that when Mr. B allows. Later, I will add a koala mask and a cool map of Australia. We will also pick up a stack of Australia books at the library tomorrow. 

The Reveal: 

This box was a great success! This time, I presented the box to Mr. B after explaining that we were done with Antarctica and will be studying a new contient. He was really excited and wanted to do all the activities inside. We worked on identifying Australia on the map (coloring it in) and on the globe. We discussed and matched up all the animals and read all three books (Mr. B re-enacted the stories with the toy animals). 

Another perfect homeschooling day today!!!

Update: We also added a unit on the Great Barrier Reef to the Australia box.