At-Home Activities: Famous Explorers

February 22-26

See a suggested week schedule at https://www.celebrationeducation.com/single-post/free-curriculum

Workshop Class Activities

Craft – Viking Banner
Key Points – Early Explorers
Collaborative – Spice Routes
Language Arts – A Proposal to Explore
Math/Logic – Map Journeys
Prepare for Adventure – Emergency Escape Plan
Big Activity - Traders
Movement - Steal the Treasure

At-Home Activities

Materials

various fiction and non-fiction books that relate to oceans and ocean exploration
journal or lined paper
items necessary for a lemonade stand or other type of small shop
ingredients to make a curry dish
sidewalk chalk
paper to make bookmarks

Reading

The Renaissance Explorers: With History Projects for Kids: https://amzn.to/2LS3EOq
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch: https://amzn.to/37gZK98
Treasure Island unabridged: https://amzn.to/3qsR5Is Stepping Stone book: https://amzn.to/3qpWWOz
Various fiction and non-fiction books that relate to oceans and ocean exploration

Writing

Copywork

"The future is in the hands of those who explore... and from all the beauty they discover while crossing perpetually receding frontiers, they develop for nature and for humankind an infinite love." - Jacques Yves Cousteau, Oceanographer

"Buoyed by water, he can fly in any direction-up, down, sideways-by merely flipping his hand. Under water, man becomes an archangel." - Jacques Yves Cousteau, Oceanographer

Language arts lesson

Letter-writing is a fun way to communicate with others. Here’s how to write a letter: https://youtu.be/y2d-0dIimgY

Writing Activity

Write a letter to a friend or family member that you haven’t seen in a while. Tell them about an outing you went on recently.

Journaling

A history event I wish I could witness is…

I chose this event because…

Math

Math Concept

The biggest driving force behind the Age of Exploration was trade. Explorers wanted to find exciting new products to trade and faster routes to obtain them.

Math Project

Start a trade of your own, such as a lemonade stand or other product you can easily sell: https://redtri.com/great-alternatives-to-a-lemonade-stand/

Set up a pretend store of your own to play with family members. Pretend you’re selling your toys. Make your own money and put price tags on your toys.

Math Concept

Cooking provides a great opportunity to work with fractions, especially when you have the opportunity to double and half a recipe.

Math Project

Use exotic spices to make a yummy curry dish: https://www.cookingclassy.com/chicken-curry/

Mental math

Play hopscotch math. Set up a hopscotch grid with a calculator layout. Older kids can include the square root symbol and negative integer sign. First hop on one number, then an operation, another number, the equal sign, and finally the answer. For double-digit answers, you can split your last hop so that your left foot lands on the digit in the 10s place and your right foot lands on the digit in the ones place.

Math games

Play Make 24: https://www.coolmathgames.com/0-make-24

Projects

Research and Report

Choose five explorers from the Age of Exploration. Select one interesting fact about each explorer. Make a bookmark for each of these facts. You might consider Marco Polo, Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama, Zheng He, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci. Vasco de Balboa, Ferdinand Magellan, Sebastián Elcano, and James Cook.

Themed Fireworks Project

Make a timeline of exploration.

6-week project

Start a bigger project that will take six weeks to complete. By the end of the project you will have:

• A written report

• An oral report

• Some kind of a display

Choose a topic for your project. We’re studying oceans for the next few weeks, so choose a biological (living things, such as people, animals, and plants), geological (land formations, rocks and minerals), or archaeological (things made by people) thing that can be found in the oceans. It’s a good idea to be fairly specific. For example, choose a specific animal – not all of them.

Choose your display. A report display can be much more than a tri-fold board. You can make a diorama, a stuffed animal, or even a Lego structure.

Go here to get more ideas on how to do a 6-week report: https://www.celebrationeducation.com/post/2016/11/02/how-to-create-great-projects-for-groups-and-individuals

Outings

Tour a tall ship.

Other Ideas

Make a list of your favorite places to explore in your neighborhood. What makes these places special to you? Write about it in your journal.
Research ancient shipbuilding and draw examples of various sailing vessels from different cultures.
Make a dish that features a particular spice as an important ingredient such as cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, mace or pepper.
Complete an explorers worksheet: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/worksheets/worldhistory/world_explorers.pdf
Make an explorer timeline.
Play Kubb. Kubb is believed to be an authentic Viking game that involves tossing a stick and knocking down blocks of wood. https://youtu.be/XfWt0-_MNsY