Friday, April 28, 2017

Learning About Brazil!

Brazil was our final country for the preschool year! I plan to recap our year with the complete reading list, and then hopefully I will share my plan for kindergarten. We really enjoyed learning a little about different countries so I have a whole new list of countries and/or regions to talk about in kindergarten.

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 Brazil, but since we have Compassion kids in Brazil, I wanted to talk about the country! Here are the books we read:

  • The Rainforest Grew All Around by Susan Mitchell
  • Amazon Alphabet by Martin & Tanis Jordan
  • Bugs for Lunch/Insectos para el almuerzo by Margery Facklam
  • Rain Forest Wildlife by Jinny Johnson
  • A Little Book of Sloth by Lucy Cooke
  • "Slowly, Slowly, Slowly," Said the Sloth by Eric Carle
  • In the Rainforest by Maurice Pledger
  • The Firebird of Rio by Christine Kohler

    Some of the books are not about Brazil specifically, but went along well with the other two books. (Bugs for Lunch/Insectos para el almuerzo went along because we watched some of Human Planet and watched kids hunting for tarantulas in the Amazon rainforest!) And of course reading about sloths is perfect for learning about the rainforest!

    We found the countries on the map and spent some time praying for our Compassion kids! And since we had the special opportunity for a friend to visit two of our Brazilian Compassion kids, we spent some time looking at the photos and watching videos of Gizelle and Estela.


    Juanito was very excited that he has a Brazilian soccer jersey and wanted our Compassion kids to see it!


    And of course we had to color Brazil's flag:


    Through reading Amazon Alphabet, we learned that X-Ray Fish live in Brazil, so we colored them, along with the Brazilian soccer team logo, the Amazon Rainforest, and a boy and girl in Brazil!

    We sent each Compassion child a letter, a photo, a sticker sheet, and a coloring page from Juanito and Rosie (remember the rule of 6 pages max!). And I fully intended to photograph the mailing (so you can get an idea of what to send your kid and to share the lovely coloring), but I completely forgot until the envelope was sealed. But if you want a visual, check out our Mexico post!


    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.) The kids were fascinated...Juanito is now designing blow darts and Rosie is turtle hunting with her babies.

    We also watched some Compassion videos to learn more about Brazil! The first is specifically about Brazil, the second is just a fun video about extra-curricular activities in Compassion projects but BR-417, the project where 4 or our 5 Brazilian children attend, is featured!



    I made two Brazilian meals, thanks to my favorite cookbook: Extending the Table: A World Community Cookbook by Joetta Handrich Schlabach and a recipe that Compassion sent, which I had tried a few years ago. We had chicken and rice, and we also had Baio de Dois.


    We also made Bolinhos de Arroz for co-op, which the kids really enjoyed because they were able to mix the batter (although we made ours in patties instead of balls because they kept falling apart).


    And we made blue morpho butterflies in co-op since they live in the Amazon Rainforest!


    We've had a great time learning about Brazil! And I am looking forward to continuing our country studies next year!

    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
  • Mexico




    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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