Traveling Tanzania

Tanzania wasn’t on the list of countries for Galloping the Globe, but I was asked to help write a preschool unit for Itty Bitty Bookworm and I couldn’t pass up all the research that I had done for the unit!

We studied about Tanzania after we finished up our unit on Kenya since they are both in eastern Africa. Tanzania is the largest country in East Africa and also has the tallest mountain ~ Mt. Kilimanjaro. For our study we started with the book We All Went on Safari by Laurie Krebs looked more at the Maasai culture, learned about Mt. Kilimanjaro, tried to speak a little Swahili, and just had fun exploring a little more of Africa!

Week 1 Layout

Monday

• Introduce East Africa song about Tanzania from Geography Songs {see words below}
• Use atlas and globe to locate Tanzania
• Independent reading ~ pick a book from the shelf to read 
• Watched this 10 minute YouTube video about Tanzania

Tuesday

• Review geography song
• Learn {and reviewed} some geography terms: Mt. Kilimanjaro, Great Rift Valley, lake, crater, and island {Zanzibar}
• Completed our mapping activity of Tanzania

   Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Wednesday

• Review geography song
• Built a Masai hut {which I cannot for the life of me find a picture of}. Laurianna gathered sticks/twigs from outside and glued them around a small can of chilies and it was very cute!
• Learned about Mt. Kilimanjaro
• Independent reading

Thursday

• Review geography song
• Story from Around the World in 80 Tales ~ The Dancing Hyena
• Talked about similarities/differences between our culture and life in Tanzania
• Reading together book on Tanzania {from our bookshelf}

Week 2 Layout

Monday

• Review geography song
• Independent reading
• Took a little tour via the Time for Kids: Tanzania site
• Tried our hands {ok, mouths} at some native lingo

Tuesday

• Review geography song
• Learned about the flag of Tanzania using our notebooking page

 Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Wednesday

• Review geography song
• Talked about the climate of Tanzania
• Used Draw Write Now to draw a giraffe
• Talked about the Serengeti and watched this short YouTube clip on the Serengeti National Park

Thursday

• Review geography song
• Children Just Like Me book and notebooking page
• Added our notebooking pages to our binder and stamped our passports!

Resources and Websites

• Time for Kids: Tanzania
• Mama Lisa’s World ~ songs in Swahili
• Busy Bee Crafts ~ some cute safari animal crafts for younger kids
• Tanzania Odyssey ~ great info about Mt. Kilimanjaro
• A Tale of Tanzania
• Food in Tanzania
• Geographia ~ links and information for many countries in Africa
• Tanzania Music and Pictures ~ YouTube video clip

Books We Used