Friday, March 31, 2017

Learning About Kenya!

We just finished a brief look at Kenya (with a brief mention of Uganda and Rwanda)! As I mentioned before, the main books we are covering are recommended by the Five in a Row [FIAR] curriculum and Give Your Child the World by Jamie C Martin.


Our FIAR book was not about Kenya, but I really wanted to talk about Kenya this year with our kids since we have Compassion kids from Kenya. I also threw in a book about Uganda since it is Kenya's neighbor and I love the book! Here are the books we read:

  • Masai and I by Virginia Kroll
  • My Name is Blessing by Eric Walters
  • Moja Means One: Swahili Counting Book by Muriel Feelings
  • Papa, Do You Love Me? by Barbara Joosse
  • Wangari's Trees of Peace by Jeanette Winter
  • For You are a Kenyan Child by Kelly Cunnane
  • Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema
  • A Visit to Kenya by Mary Packard
  • Beatrice's Goat by Page McBrier (about Uganda)

    I enjoyed Masai and I, For You are a Kenyan Child and Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain for the illustrations and showing a little bit of the Kenyan culture in a fun way!

    Juanito's favorite book was Wangari's Trees of Peace; he was fascinated that someone would be arrested for planting trees. And Rosie loved Beatrice's Goat, which was probably my favorite out of all the ones we read!

    We found the countries on the map and spent some time praying for our Compassion kids! Thanks to Beatrice's Goat, we also prayed for our kids from Uganda and Rwanda--Uganda because the story took place in Uganda, and Rwanda because our Compassion child from Rwanda recently bought a goat.


    Since we were talking about the three different countries, we looked at a more detailed map of east Africa and then colored each country's flag! Crayola has Kenya's and Uganda's, but they don't have Rwanda's current flag, so we drew our own:


    And while looking at the map of east Africa, I was reminded that our cichlids come from the lakes in east Africa! We have lots of cichlids, so we took a moment to admire them and find their lakes on the map.


    We also watched some of the Human Planet, since it includes a few different locations in Kenya. (I refer to Wikipedia for the listing of what is shown in each episode, and I hope to show the kids some more when we learn about Brazil in a month!)

    The kids were fascinated watching the Dorobo hunters steal meat from lions, Maasai boys follow a honey bird to honey, and Samburu hunters find water by following elephants. Juanito has been playing that he is a Kenyan hunter looking for meat, honey and water.


    I made three Kenyan meals, thanks to my favorite cookbook: Extending the Table: A World Community Cookbook by Joetta Handrich Schlabach. We had lentils, ground meat and mango fish! All three meals were a big hit with all three kids...which is a feat!


    Juanito chose to narrate Wangari's Trees of Peace:
    She helped pull the weeds when she was a girl. Then she went to the state America because she wanted to study. When she came back, she saw no trees. She was sad. She saw women carrying firewood more far away from home. Wangari's going to plan more trees. The women, all of them, help Wangari plant trees. The cutting continues and then they hit her with clubs and put her in jail because she was planning trees, but she wasn't bad. But she wasn't alone because she saw trees and greet got back to earth, Kenya.



    And Rosie narrated Beatrice's Goat (here are the templates for the goat and girl):
    It's about the niƱa and the little goat. They walked a lot to see the mom. She didn't even go to school, she carried a baby hermana to the bush. They got a goat, the mami had two goats. They drinked leche. She gets the goat, she plays with the goats, she's going to the school.



    We've had a great time learning about Kenya! Next up, Mexico! It doesn't go along with our FIAR book, but I have some fun books we'll read.

    To view my complete plan for the year, click here. And here are the previous countries in the series:
  • China
  • Spain
  • Tanzania
  • France
  • Colombia
  • Ghana
  • Italy
  • Thailand
  • Peru
  • India & Pakistan




    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.
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