Topography Activitie

Hi guys, today I wanted to share with you some topography activities we did during our geography study. 

We started of by watching this YouTube video. It was a really good introduction to a topic that might be hard to understand. 

After the video we made a our own playdough mountain. We used floss to cut the different layers. We then traced it on to our paper. The further the contour lines were from each other the flatter that part of the mountain is. The closer the lines are together the steeper the mountain is. 

We also used foam sheets to make another example of contour lines. 

Older boys used cardboard to make their contour lines. This was such a fun and beautiful activity. You can get the full instructions from Beauty of Plays map curriculum.  She has book suggestions and more topography hands on activities to make this lesson come to life. 

Here is another really good video we watched demonstrating how mountains are drawn on a map. 

If your looking for more mountain projects and unit study ideas, check out our mountain diorama post. 

Animals in Canada

Along with learning about all the provinces and territories of Canada we are also learning about animals in Canada. Here are some of the animals we learned about. 

We learned about the anatomy of a goose using our stuffed plushy and diy labels. 

We also learned about the life cycle of a goose. We read some wonderful books and watched YouTube videos. 

Next we learned about Beavers and how they are a Canadian symbol. We read this simple book and played with some beaver figurines. 

We also built a beaver dam as our science extension. 

I gave the kids different materials to build a beaver dam with and they were able to test how well their dam held water. 

The next animal we learned about was the Pacific Salmon.

Sedimentary Rocks

Hi guys, I wanted to share with you a fun hands on activity we did when we learned all about sedimentary rocks, how they form, and how the sediment settles in water. 

We started out by making sediment layers in a jar. We collected rocks, sand, and dirt from the backyard. We add all the sediment to our jar and topped it off with water. We shook the jar and left it over night. We observed how the different sediment settled in the water. The larger pieces like the rock and sand settled first. The mud and silt was the next to settle and all the organic material like the dead leaves stayed at the top. 

We also built the layers out of Lego to add more hands on projects to our science time. We looked at our rock collection and observed all sedimentary rocks under the microscope. We were able to see the different layers and pieces that cemented together. 

My son put all the information he learned about in our scrapbook journal. 

I hope you enjoyed all the hands on activities we did. 

Alberta Study

Hi guys, and welcome to our study all about the province of Alberta. For our Canada study we are using The Great Canadian Adventure. Here are some of the things we learned all about this great province.

We learned all about topography maps and contour lines. We made this beautiful one out of cardboard and painted it. For my younger kids we did a simple one out of foam sheets and playdough. 

We also learned about a great Canadian John Ware, a famous cowboy. My son put together a scrapbook page all about him. 

We also watched an animated story about John Ware on YouTube. 

We also learned a lot about weathering, erosion, and the rock cycle. We did some fun demonstrations too. 

We also learned about Dinosaurs and fossil fuel using documentaries and books. 

Dinosaur Lego building. This activity is always a favorite. Anything that involves Lego building is always a hit. 

This was a fun activity from Mystery Science. Can you out run a dinosaur?

If you love this post make sure to check out our study about British Columbia. 

British Columbia Study

Hi guys, I wanted to share our study of British Columbia. In my opinion one of the most beautiful provinces. Here are some activities we did. We used The Great Canadian Adventure as our primary resources. 

At the beginning of the week I set up our work shelves with books, projects, and pintables to get us in the mood to start our study. 

After learning all about the Rocky Mountains we baked a sugar cookie in the shape of British Columbia. We used chocolate chips for the mountains and blue icing for the two major rivers. 

We learned about the three types of volcanoes (shield, cone, stratovolcano). We of course used baking soda and vinegar to make a volcano. We also tied in some Arabic watching Farashaty video on volcanoes. 

We learned all about salmon and tied our history study of the Pacific Northwest Natives. 

We did a flower dissection and learned all about The Great Bear Rainforest.

We also read a lot of books and watched videos all about British Columbia. I shared a lot on our Instagram page. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing all the different activities. If you enjoyed this post check out our other post all about Nova Scotia.