Geography of Africa–The Countries and Physical Features

Once again, we brought out our pin maps as we learned about the countries of West Africa. We used the flags of Africa from Montessori Materials  to create country pins for our pin map (African Flags-page 1;  African Flags-page 2).

You can download and print out the map from the African Learning Pack I made back in September. I used a plain cork board underneath the map.

As we were talking about the trade between North Africa and West Africa, we talked about how huge a barrier the Sahara Desert would have been.  We brought out the map that showed the countries that could all fit inside the boundaries of Africa (that’s on page 4 of the African Learning Pack):

We’ve been learning about the history of West Africa — the empires of Ghana and Mali. Since the physical features of Africa are so critical to understanding of the history, we spent a day making physical maps. The kids (even ED) did these maps free-hand, I just guided them through. (We made a C for the north-west area, then a horizontal line across the top, a slight diagonal before drawing the horn of Africa, etc. etc.)

As they worked on their maps, I read a bit more about the Mali, Sundiata and Mansa Musa. More about that in the post tomorrow or the next day about West African history.  I’ll share our West Africa notebook pages with you tomorrow as well.

Meanwhile, if you want to see some of the other posts in our studies of Africa you can click here — Africa Unit.  Scrolling through those posts you’ll see some of the other things we’ve done — African masks, the study of Islam and its history, the food of North Africa, a study of Ancient Egypt (including worksheets about the ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses, our Egyptian death masks, etc.).

You can also see what we’ve been up to by visiting my Homeschool Den Facebook Page. I give a quick synopsis of each post. It’s a quick easy way to keep up with and browse through our latest activities.  Hope to see you there!

You might be interested in these related posts:

• West African History — Free Notebook Pages, African Picture Books — which includes these free pages

• Geography of Africa — The Countries and Physical Features
• West African Art Projects: Morrocan Tiles, African Masks, African Music
• Cooking with Kids: A Taste of Africa and the Middle East
• Learning about Islam — Free Worksheets and Resources for Kids
• These posts on Ancient Egypt
• Africa Unit — Basic Facts about Africa which includes the free pack I made below.

See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page. Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter! ~Liesl