Artistic Maps from around the World

I just found a great site with maps drawn by artists from around the world.  The site is called They Draw and Travel.  You can search for all kinds of fun maps on there.  I am printing some of now to display in my home (I teach Spanish to homeschoolers). I am thinking these could be used with geography lessons, too. Check it out!

More on the Argentina Unit

We are currently working on a unit about Argentina through the book Chúcaro.  Here are some pictures of the boys working on a notebooking page about llamas.  They used Draw Write Now Volume 8 in order to draw a picture of a llama for their pages.  We also focused a bit on Paraguay and Brazil, two countries that border Argentina and are a part of the story of Chúcaro.

Here is the llama page from Draw Write Now that we used...

The boys working on Brazil and Paraguay pages provided in the Chúcaro unit.

Here's a look at my lesson plans (or at least part of them) for the unit.  The page is a part of Study Starters if you buy their system. The unit has turned out to be about three weeks worth of lesson plans, but that is at a swift pace.  You could definitely take more time on it!

Update on Chúcaro-Argentina Unit

We have been working on our unit on Argentina based on the book, Chúcaro.  We have been using Study Starters as notebooking pages for our study.  I am loving these pages!  Here are a few of the things we have done...

Country Info Pages

The regions of Argentina

The Grasslands of Argentina and other areas of the world

The Ombú tree of the Pampas of Argentina

Learning about Argentina-Ushuaia

In December, the boys and I are embarking on a study of Argentina through the unit on Chúcaro, a book about some gauchos (Argentine cowboys).  I have been to Argentina three times, twice by myself and once with Tim.  When I went with Tim, we traveled to Misiones Province which is in northern Argentina and very tropical.  We also went south...to the southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia (pronounced "oo-shoe-eye-ah"). Ushuaia is a remarkable place...kind of the end of the earth. We felt comfortable there as it has a similar feel to Alaska (also kind of "the end of the earth"). We went in the winter time (summer here in the States) and were able to enjoy snow down in Tierra del Fuego (Tierra del Fuego means "fire land" and is the province where Ushuaia is located).  Not that we need more opportunities to enjoy snow! LOL!

The city and surrounding area has about 64,000 people which was more to our liking than the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, with its millions of people. Here is a picture of the city of Ushuaia...it is so picturesque.

Well, while the boys are learning more about the country of Argentina, I thought I would do the same. Recently, I bought a book for Tim called Rounding the Horn by Dallas Murphy. He recently finished the book, and now I am reading it.  While some of it is technical and scientific I am enjoying learning more about the tip of South America and Cape Horn.

So far, I have only read three chapters, but I am enjoying learning more about the area, the geography and history of the area.

Stay tuned in the month of December for more posts about Argentina.  You will be able to find all my posts about our Argentina unit under the "labels" category on the left-hand sidebar.  That way, if you are ever interested in doing a unit on Argentina you can go through my posts for extra information and activities.

Ushuaia-fin del mundo (End of the World)

Resources for Studying Argentina

So in December we are embarking on studying Argentina through the book Chúcaro.  There is a unit for the book Chúcaro here.

Here are some other resources that we may use.  I wanted to collect them in one spot so that if anyone was ever interested in doing a unit on Argentina they could use them!

I love the "Choose-a-Country" lapbook available at Homeschool Share. We may use this as we work through Argetina.

Here is another unit on Argentina from the lady at Homeschool in the Woods.

General information about Argentina

Maps of Argentina

Christmas in Argentina from "Christmas Around the World" unit and lapbook-you will have to scroll to find Argentina.

Study Starters-We are going to use these pages as we go through our unit.  They are really cool and cheap!

Here are some units for younger kids: On the Pampas, Gauchada

What's in Store for December?

I am currently working on getting our December plans together for school.

We will be doing some different things for December this year...I have decided that we are going to be taking a break from our history (Ancients) and our science (Zoology) for the month of December.  This year we are going to do a unit study on Argentina based on the book, Chúcaro.  You can find the study here. I wrote this study so that I could do it with my kids. I have been to Argentina three times and love it there! I want the boys to have an appreciation of other countries.  So many times South America and Africa get left out in the dark so to speak when studying about the world. We recently did a study on Malawi, and now I thought it would be a great idea to focus on Argentina.

I am also planning on doing some fun projects in December related to Christmas.  Here are some of the ideas I am toying with...

I have wanted for a long time to make some of the treats from Bakerella...maybe some reindeer or Christmas trees.

We might do our 3-D snowflakes again this year and Minty Snowmen.

We always read one of the following stories each year for Advent...we have just voted on which one we are going to do (we have read them all so we decided to vote to see which one we will repeat this year). And we have decided to do Tabitha!

Stay tuned for updates as we get closer to December.  I am hoping to compile all we do with Chúcaro and put it on the blog in case there are others who want to do this study.