On adventure in Africa Dear Families, First of all we want to wish you a Happy Holidays! It has been an
incredible first semester and we are excited to start a new year
and introduce a new continent study. We have been listening to and observing the children's interest over the past few weeks and
thinking about how to link their interests to major themes in Montessori and in our classroom at
Torit. Nature, geography and culture will come together in an African continent study in early
2015 (expected to permeate every aspect of the classroom and continue for many weeks.) This
continent study will allow us both to “follow the child” and to be truly interdisciplinary in our
work. A common interest among many children has been the animals of Africa, such as cheetahs, lions,
and giraffes. As part of our study of these animals, we will cover several main African climates,
focusing on the savannah, the rainforest, and the desert. For each area, we will present a tribe,
their way of life, the villages where they live and their music or any other traditions. Geography is a constant source of interest in a Preprimary room and we have been concentrating on both the continent map and “me on the map.” Geography of place generally
begins with “me.” Like all of our lessons, our concrete manipulative of concentric circles helps
teach the “geography of place.” We have discussed that we go to school in Boston, which is in Massachusetts, in the USA, in North America. For those of you who attended our Sensorial curriculum workshop, note the similarity between this “geography of place” work and the skills built with the Knobless Cylinders. The first weeks when we return to school we will review the lesson “Me on the map” and we
will look in the continent map at where Africa is. We will talk about how we can go from North
America to Africa and where exactly it is situated on the map. Separated from Europe by the
Mediterranean Sea, it is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by the Isthmus of Suez .We will
ask the children what they know about this ancient continent and what they would like to know. So what is a “continent study” in a Torit 3 – 6 year old classroom, in addition to the Montessori
maps? To answer this question, remember the many ways in which we are constantly exposing
the children to the complexity of cultures and the similarities inherent in seeming differences.
Our holiday celebrations, for example, open the children’s eyes to a microcosm of the elements
of a continent study, e.g. dress, traditions, celebrations, physical landscapes, surrounding
ecosystems, art, music, food, and architecture. We have begun formulating concrete aspects of our Africa continent study. Ms. Dounia has
already introduced many North African traditions, during our language circles and especially
during our Eid celebration. During Eid, we cooked traditional dishes and took part in art projects
based on the holiday. Thanks to our valuable multicultural community we will invite Miss
Dounia and Miss Salima to share their countries with us (Morocco and Algeria, Africa’s largest
country) in Northern Africa. Our featured artist will be Edward Saidi Tingatinga from Tanzania, East Africa. We like how he
used bright colors and the simplicity of his designs. But far from stopping here, our little artists
will try to recreate, paint or model not only the savanna but also some of the most unique places
in Africa as the Kilimanjaro, the Victoria waterfalls, the Nile or the Sahara desert. And of course
we’ll design and create our own African mask and discuss masks’ significance as part of our art
curriculum. As we continue to plan out this African study, we are calling on all of you to help us make this
continent project stimulating and meaningful for the classroom. If you would like to contribute
with your own experience, bringing some objects or pictures or maybe friends that have been
there… or if you have skills such as cooking, sewing, painting, carving, playing instruments,
dancing or any other that we can use to add to this African adventure it will make a great unit for
the children. Please contact us via email if you are ready to pack and make a fascinating trip to Africa in
2015! Best, Miss Carolina and Mr. Joey