Our next FIAR book is actually Harold and the Purple Crayon, but I wanted to include an African country, specifically one where we sponsor Compassion children, and so I squeezed Tanzania into our studies between The Story of Ferdinand and Harold and the Purple Crayon! Here are the books we read:
(You may notice that the list is slightly different than the books on my plan because I wasn't able to find all my intended titles at the local library, so I subbed in some books that our library did have!)
We had fun finding Tanzania on the map, locating where our stories took place, praying for our Compassion girls from Tanzania, and learning about animals that live in Tanzania!
And then we went on a hunt for Tanzanian animals hiding in our house... It was educational because the kids learned that bears don't live in Tanzania, nor do tigers, but lions do! They put them in the "zoo" after finding them all:
Even José found a Tanzanian animal...
We also had fun looking through Jessi's photos of her trip to Tanzania, which you can find on her blog: Me and Mr. Jones. When Jessi came back from Tanzania, she also taught me a Tanzanian game called Simba and Swala. Rosie wasn't very interested in the game, but Juanito and I had fun playing tag with one person being the simba, or lion, and the other being the swala, or gazelle. In addition to looking at Jessi's photos, we also watched some Compassion videos about Tanzania, and this was our favorite:
In reading Elizabeti's Doll and Lala Salama: A Tanzanian Lullaby, the kids noticed that the moms wear their babies on their backs like I wear José. So they decided to get some cloths to wear kangas like the Tanzanian moms do:
We spent some time praying for our Compassion girls in Tanzania: Maria, Elinami, Magreth and Rose! The kids colored some pictures too, and so I sent our girls letters showing the photo of Juanito or Rosie holding their photo and I also scanned and attached the kids' coloring!
We did narrations for Elizabeti's Doll. Juanito's:
She has a baby and she didn't have her doll and she found a rock and named it Eva. She went to go visit her friend and she didn't have a doll so she found a rock and named it Malucey. She went to get water, she put Eva next to the other rocks so she wouldn't be lonely. When she came back she couldn't find Eva, and then she found next to the pot and she rolled it and her mommy cleaned it off and rocked the baby in her arms.
And Rosie's:
A niña, she uses the rock para una muñeca. She can't find her mami, cause she cookin'. She carries him in the room.
And then we did narrations for We All Went on Safari. We had to learn to draw elephants for our narrations and used these instructions. Juanito's:
Encuentran un leopardo y encuentran elefantes, jirafas y hipopótamos. Nos fuimos todos de Safari y vimos ñúes, jabalíes, cebras, monos y leones. Hicieron un fuego y durmieron.
Rosie's:
Vi elefantes, jirafa, cebras, jabalíes, ñúes, leopardo, a monkey. Hoo hoo ha ha.
And then because we learned how to draw elephants, Rosie wanted to read her favorite elephant books, the Elephant and Piggie Books, which are also available in Spanish!
We've had a great time learning about Tanzania! Next up, France!
To view my complete plan for the year, click here. And here are the previous countries in the series:
About Hannah Hinojosa...Hannah is a long time Compassion sponsor and writes about her sponsorship journey at Because of Shamim. In addition to being a wife and mother, she is a part-time math professor and loves to read.
