Babar and India {FIAR}

So far in my ‘Around the World with FIAR’ series we have covered the Polar Regions and South America.  For the next few weeks I will be teaching the little ones all about the continent of Asia.  I have, as usual, used a lot of leyway as to where I am placing each of the Five in a Row books geographically.  I chose Babar to represent India because of the presence of an elephant 🙂  We decided Babar must be an Indian elephant on account of its small(ish) ears and one lobed trunk (well, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it!).

Babar (the Indian elephant) is scheduled to perform a duet with a great pianist at a concert. Babar refuses to admit that the piece of music is too hard for him.

Babur: Goals

• Reading Babar each day and doing the activities which go along with FIAR manuals
• To learn a bit more about elephants.  I bought the following powerpoint presentation all about elephants in India (which nicely linked Babar (the elephant) to India).  There is no Fold&Go to use along with this book so I had a look on the Homeschool Share website and found an Elephant Animal Study and lapbook.
• To learn about monsoons in India

I knew this was a huge ask in terms of breadth and depth but I had decided to up the ante somewhat with my eight year old and so we dug in!

Barbar and the FIAR Activities

Asia: In my Book Box

   

I will read out loud Babar and Just So Stories.  A8 will be reading Out of India and Crazy Days with Cobras during her quiet time.

We will also be using the following two books to meet my geographical goals:

 

The first book will be read daily whilst the second I will read a little of each day, concentrating on all the India sections.

Where on Earth is India?

The girls looked for and found India on our large paper mache map of the world:

Native Animals of India

We learnt all about the Indian Elephant:

I found a rather large Elephant Animal Study and lapbook which we filled in and a power point presentation.  These were both SO extensive and I knew A in particular would have a lot of enjoyment reading it and doing the activities.  I wasn’t too worried about doing all of it because A’s next endangered animal after the panda is the elephant, so we would be revisiting this at some point 🙂

I was very pleased because A8, who does not enjoy writing, completed every mini book herself, although I did have to spell almost every word for her 😉

And lastly the girls completed an art lesson on elephants from art achieve:

Asia: Geography

• The Continent of Asia

We read this out each day, made up the puzzle and made sure the girls knew where it was on the map.

• The country of India

We read through parts of this book each day and the girls made up their own mini book all about India:

• Indian Monsoons

We used this website to learn all about the Indian Monsoons.  They had a downloadable lesson for A to read and answer some questions on:

This wasn’t a hugely extensive study, as we will be covering India when we begin our history studies in September.  If you would like to see lots more hands on activities pop over to my India studies with the older ones (although they were about A’s age at the time).  Click on the picture below:

Next week we will be focusing on Japan.