Zander’s animal choice was LIONS! So of course we had to find all that we could about where they live, what they do and how they survive. I hope these are helpful!

BOOKS:

• Magic Tree House #11: Lions at Lunchtime HERE
• Lions by Tammy Gagne HERE
• I am a Lion by Karen Durrie. This AV2 book has a website you can visit for supplementary activities and some print outs. HERE
• Mouse & Lion by Rand Burkert and Nancy Ekholm Burket HERE
• Welcome to Kenya by Patrick Ryan HERE
• Tanzania by Patricia J. Murphy HERE
• (We also made use of various magazines… National Geographic, National Geographic Kids, Ranger Rick… all thanks to Nana and Gammie!)

TV:

• National Geographic’s Big Cat Odyssey
• Wild Kratts Bad Hair Day (Season 2)
• Lion King

WORKSHEETS:

• Daniel in the Lion’s Den with Bible Story Printables HERE and game HERE
• DLTK’s lion printables including a story HERE
• Colouring page with PreschoolMom.com HERE
• Letter L printable with Activity Village HERE
• Grassland Food Web printable (no activity) with Exploring Nature Educational Resource HERE
• EnchantedLearning printable HERE
• First Palette animal printables HERE
• Lion King official printables HERE with Family Go
• Africa Resources with Homeschool Creations HERE
• Africa Theme unit with edhelper.com HERE

LAPBOOKS:

• HS Highlights Lions lapbook for purchase HERE

CRAFTS:

• We watched the Lion King in the end and of course had to do some of the official crafty stuff found HERE on DisneyFamily.com

KENYA:

• We had a series of maps we looked at to answer some questions: Ducksters (HERE), The Forestry Department for a mountain location (HERE), BBC for the equator line (HERE)
• Kids 4 Kenya HERE
• Activity Village section HERE
• National Geographic Kids with printable HERE

Tanzania

• National Geographic Kids with printable HERE
• A map with Ducksters HERE
• Activity Village section HERE

VIDEOS:

Esther found this one for us on the Lions and the Masai…

And I came across this lovely ones of Kenyan children dancing.

We had two more from Esther that she deemed interesting… the kids agreed! First, A Lion Pride – Introducing Daddy to the Cubs by BBC Wildlife

And the other… Lion Pride in Kenya, Africa by Brian’s Art for Animals.

September 11-12

It was a bit of a trick to really get through to the kids that it was a new year. Though using the kitchen table (with Nana and Baba gone it is freed up) to change things up a bit for now has helped.

On Wednesday we had a special visitor – Aunty Darcy! She had an errand to run in the neighbourhood so came by after it to hang out and to take yours truly out so we could enjoy a kid free lunch (one of the perks to having a hubby who can work from home!!). She was a gem and found us a caterpillar to check out. We would have kept it… until it escaped the cup and tried to make for freedom! So we examined it for a while and the twins returned it to the front yard intact.

We are working our way back to daily story time courtesy of our fantastic readers Zander and Gavin…

Checking in on science projects…

and enjoying our days as much as we can. After all learning is best when it is FUN!

Our first week of the “new” school year is an abbreviated one. We only set up to school Monday to Thursday as Friday was a special (super special) surprise for the kids. But Thursday was still school as normal. Working with the kids to see how they answer questions like – what you like, don’t like, favourite class… it is so fun finding out what runs through their heads!

The boys really went all out working on some of the new (and not so new) instructions off of Art for Kids (link on right). They are our go to place for drawing and art related ideas!!!

Miss Echo also had an absolute BLAST making her own series of messes…

The kids wowed me with a Lego Tree…

And Ken and I FINALLY made the two lunch boxes for two little girls back up in Canada… out of duct tape and some Velcro. I hope they work!

Thank goodness for Disney and our lion themed film – The Lion King! We even made rings to go with!

I can’t forget to share our Target stash… 50% off school supplies in the dollar section is AMAZING!