In the weeks leading up to winter break, our K-3 students had the opportunity to learn about another continent with our student teacher, Julie. She took them on a trip around the Earth to visit Africa (virtually, of course). To introduce this unit, she started out by using Google Earth to show the students our school to give them a bit of perspective. Then, she zoomed out to show them the state of New York, followed by the United States of America, then North America and on to the remaining 6 continents. We came back to North America and took our trip from North America over the ocean to Africa. Once we arrived in Africa, she gave them some fun facts about Africa and asked each student what they wanted to learn about this new continent we would be studying. 

In the following class, she introduced some of the different habitats found within the boundaries of Africa. We discussed the desert habitat in the Sahara Desert across Mali, the tropical forest habitat in Congo Rainforest residing in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the tropical grassland habitat in the Savannas of Kenya. While discussing these habitats, we also covered some of the animals living in these spaces. We talked about jerboas, dromedary camels, and scorpions in the desert. In the rainforest, we talked about the okapi, gorillas, the black colobus monkey, red eyed tree frogs, driver ants, and African forest elephants. While exploring the African Savanna, we talked about lions, zebra, elephants, giraffes, and hyenas. 

Our next class was spent learning about the people that lived in the same spaces that we discussed in our last class, Mali, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We learned about their homes, how they transport goods, and the type of land in these regions. One of the facts that stood out the most for the students was that the homes in Mali had flat roofs where people would sleep in warm weather because it was cooler than inside their homes. 

After learning about how people live in some of Africa’s regions, we began to explore the culture in Africa. Julie started by teaching the students the culture of Morocco. She showed them the flag of Morocco and compared it to our own American flag, we talked about clothing, language, money, festivals, religion, and art. Throughout this lesson, Julie linked some of the things we were seeing in Morocco to the way we do things in our own lives. This helped us to see bits of our own culture along the way. 

In the following lesson, Julie began to show the students examples of culture in Mali, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She briefly covered homes again, then clothing and food, showing students many pictures. This lead nicely into the research projects the students had to accomplish at the end of the unit. Each of the students were assigned a country to research. In their research, students learned what the flag looked like, the language spoken, types of art they create, holidays or festivals celebrated, type of money used, and an interesting fact. The students then made a Flip Grid to share their research with the rest of the class. Our last class was spent sharing the Flip Grids and having discussions about what the students learned.