We use a combination of Landform tiles (sand surface) from Montessori materials and 3 part landform cards to understand the different landforms on the earths continents.  The girls enjoy matching the pictures to their labels and comparing them to the large sand tiles.   We then compare it to the sand globe and find the different bits we are learning from from capes to the lakes.

Today we explored further learning about the different continents and placement on the earth referring back and forth between physical maps and globes.  We used both traditional globes and Montessori globes which all focus on different areas.  The girls noticed that the traditional globe had ‘bumps’ on it where I explained it signified topography and mountains.  They enjoyed finding the areas with mountains.  They worked on direction by referring to their geopraphy workbooks (level 2) and deciphered whether continents were east or west of different areas etc.   We referred to Montessori based apps which match their globes (in color of continents) and the girls labeled maps electronically on their ipads via those apps.  We also learned about animals in North America via a Montessori App and a children’s atlas via the ipads.  The girls have started grasping a firm understanding of why animals adapt to their environments and how, where it started out with wondering why some wolves were white in certain areas and some rabbits white too….etc.  They are now understanding why they are white.