Making Snakes and Carnaval Masks!

 While studying Brazil, we also learned about the many animals living in the Amazon! One of the creatures the kids fell in love with was the Anaconda! We set out to make some awesome snakes from HERE, we just made our own spin on it! We went with keychains instead of pins and used the colors of the Brazilian flag, so that they would be able to keep those colors in their heads with the pattern repeating itself.

The kids had so much fun making them, that instead of just clipping them to their backpacks, they had a little fun first!! We ended up making 6 of these and they already gave away their extras. I hope you get a chance to make them, they were so fun and easy too!!

Making Masks for Carnavale was easily the BEST time for the little ones! We used straws and paper plates. We didn't use a template, I just explained to them what we were doing and I did mine first. Afterwards, I gave them safety scissors and let them do it all themselves! While uneven, they still did a great job!

Yes, I can buy already made masks for fairly cheap that allow the kids to glue and paint them, but I figured they would get more out of making the entire thing! 

Next step was to paint the masks in an array of colors, I told them the brighter the better! Everyone had fun with this part! Including me! haha! I love getting involved with the crafting.

After letting them dry for 24 hours, we started on the feathers! WOOHOO!! There were feather bits everywhere in the playroom for quite awhile afterwards! hahaha. We just used regular school glue and adhered them.

Now it was pose down time! See the Rainforest leaves in the background?! They didn't want to sit still for this photo! They were ready to dance and play!

Hope you enjoyed this peak into our Virtual Vacation!

You can find other posts in this blog HERE!

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Virtual Destinations and Beyond! Brazil and Ecuador

Wow, we have had an excellent week in Brazil and Ecuador! I cannot believe how much there was to do and see! We started in Brazil where learned about the animals of the Amazon Rain Forest and Even took a boat ride through the Amazon waters!

We learned about the dangerous beasts that reside in the waters of the Amazon. We watched a MOVIE all about the Deadly Animals of the Amazon and learned so much more! 

After watching the movie, we went to the Shedd Aquarium to explore their Amazon exhibit. It was awesome to see them explore this exhibit after learning all we had discussed before arriving. They were able to name the names of some of the fish and also locate them in the tanks.

Next it was Carnaval time (Carnival), where we listened to SAMBA music and even took a small lesson!

In order to properly Samba during Carnaval, we needed to make our feathered masks!! We made them out of paper plates!! I will share this lesson in another post!

After we were done with creating them, we decided to have our own Carnaval at home! We listened to Samba Music and danced our hearts out! What fun we all had with this lesson! Before we knew it, it was time for a 5 hour flight to Ecuador! We were going to explore more of the rainforest, a volcano and the Galpagos islands!! 

We made Tamarin Monkey Bookmarks and Anaconda Keychains, using the colors of the Brazilian flag. We took this time to listen to sounds of the Rainforest on the radio and try to identify the animals we heard in the recording!

We studied the animals of the rainforest with a game I created, using Toob animals and a fun fact sheet I put together. (I will explain this in a future post too!) This was very popular and is still being played with often!

We toured the Andes mountains and Cotopaxi, one of the worlds most active volcanoes! OH WOW, this was so much fun! Check out my photo gallery HERE for instructions! We even put our rain forest animals on there as decoration AND made our own rain forest trees!! All around a truly memorable trip that even had us pricing tickets to Ecuador for real!!! My husband just wants to wait until the youngest is a bit older and can handle all the walking required! We cannot wait!

Today we flew for 18 hours from the Galapagos Islands off to Tanzania in Africa! WOW, what a flight! This week we will be spending in Tanzania trekking up the Highest African Mountain of Mount Kilimanjaro! Did you know that this mountain is right near the equator as well?! Just like in Ecuador! We will learn all about this mountain and the Kalahari dessert as well!

As we head on over to South Africa, we will be going on Safari!!! How exciting! We cannot wait to see what we come across!

Lesson learned will be: African Wildlife, Mountains and Mountain Climbing, Flags and languages and other various facts.

Crafts: Make a camera out of of a mac and cheese box, toilet tube binoculars for safari, Paper Beads for jewelry making and some painting of the flag will be done too!

Cooking: In the kitchen we will grill kebabs of meats! The kids have been wanting to eat food-on-a-stick for awhile now! hahaha!! Much better than corn dogs too! Yay!

Please join us on our travels!!!

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Virtual Destinations and Beyond!

Our virtual trip to Mexico was absolutely delightful, but this could be because we have actually toured this Country and can refer to actual photos and memories!

We had fun in the kitchen making a taco bar and quesadillas! We had a blast with papier mache making a pinata (that the kids are NOT allowing to be broken) and enjoyed hopping on SKYPE to talk to some of our family members in Mexico! Now if only the rest of our Countries we had we have on the list we had actually been to, that would be fantastic! haha!

So it's time to stamp your passport and hop on the next flight! We are headed to Brazil and Ecuador!
Here, we plan on touring the equator, Exploring the rain Forest, Peeking in on Carnival and maybe taking a Samba Lesson! We will be making Carnival masks and making Empanadas!

See you in South America!!!

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