Part one of our studies was dedicated to geography and basic information about the country. We made a destination card, traced the map of Brazil instead of cutting one out of magazine. Description of our first lesson can be found here.
Part two was dedicated to the rich culture of the country and Carnival in particular. We did a drawing/collage of a carnival participant. Description of the lesson can be found here.
The third part was dedicated to the Amazon rainforest and its unique ecosystem. We read The Great Kapok Tree by Lynn Cherry which is a great book to introduce a child to the biodiversity of and Amazon forest and explain the impact a man makes on the forest. We also looked through the rainforest page in Nature Cross-sections book by Richard Orr. We also watched video about Brazil's nature that we got from the library as well as How Children live in Brazil (which was not very interesting as it is focused on similarities of the lifestyle instead of interesting cultural moments). The art project of the day was the Rainforest Scene. The idea for this project is taken from a great book called My Art Book. First we painted a background of a forest complete with a river. Then, using different paper, we drew and cut out trees, flowers and animals (we used cardstock, construction paper, brightly colored post its and just painted animals with watercolors) adding interesting details with oil pastels and wax crayons (such as shades on leaves). Finally, we glued out animals and plants on the large paper with painted background.
We watched lots of videos on youtube, listened (and continue listening) to a lot of music. I picked up one of Jorge Amado's books that I was intending to read for ages and while I'm still in process of reading I thoroughly enjoy. D. is fascinated with capoeira and I'm looking for lessons for all of us in the future.
Books about Brazil that we enjoyed:
