I LOVE DIY projects. I love the idea of saving money and making wonderful hands on activities for cheap. These DIY geography boxes didn’t cost me a penny and the kids love them!
I love DIY projects. Fun hands on activity for the kids and I to do together and easy on the budget! For the 12 Months of Montessori Learning series, we are focusing on Geography for the month of February. Find all the links to 9 other blog posts on Geography at the bottom of this post.
Materials
- Set of Graduated Boxes
- Construction Paper (black, orange, state colors, city colors)
- Printed Pictures of Earth, Country, State, and City
- Glue
- Scissors
DIY Steps
This is one of the easiest projects I have put together. I had all the materials were in my amazing closet. You can modify this with materials you have on hand.
First, gather boxes and removed the flaps. You can save these extra pieces and doing something awesome like, make a cardboard loom for kids to learn beginning weaving!
Glue the construction paper to one side of each box. I chose to use a black background for my Earth box to represent space. I chose orange as the background for North America. This is the traditional color for North America on the Montessori map. I used red and blue for the state of North Carolina box. Brown for our city. Our home box is already a lot of fun, so I decided to leave it.
Cut out pictures. Pretty easy step.
Glue cut pictures to corresponding boxes.
All done! Very easy DIY project.
The Lesson
After we made our DIY geography boxes, I added one fun lesson for each of our boxes.
For the Earth, we revisited our Hugg a Planet Earth. We used this last year on Earth Day and had a lot of fun with it! This time we talked more about all the continents and reviewed land and water.
For the country of United States of America, we did our fun United States Map Floor Puzzle. The kids love puzzles and as we worked through it we noticed the state of North Carolina.
For North Carolina, I have wonderful set of North Carolina 3 part cards that came free with my subscription to Trillium Montessori. I printed them off and the kids and I worked through some of the highlights of North Carolina.
For Efland….there really isn’t to much here! We talked about what a city is and we looked at some of the mail we get that has our city on it. We talked about the cities we visit in North Carolina. We talked about where grandparents live and how we travel to different cities for fun activities.
For our home, we have a small treasure box. I asked the kids to tell me one thing they love about our home and we wrote them down to add inside.
After we did all the activities for each of our boxes, we stacked the boxes inside each other. We talked about how our house is in the city of Efland. How Efland is in the state of North Carolina. Then how North Carolina is in the country of the United States of America. And how the USA is one country on Earth.
You could easily add on more boxes. We might have added North America as our continent or added our county if we had more boxed. Trillium Montessori has a great example of a full set of geography boxes from the universe down to you home or school.
The kids had a blast with this very easy DIY geography lesson!
I would love to see your DIY projects. Share with me more on Child Led Life’s Facebook Page!
I am excited to join several wonderful Montessori bloggers in 12 Months of Montessori Learning series in 2015. Check back on the 17th of each month to find my series post and use the links below to find similar posts on the topic of the month!
Amazing blogs involved in the 12 Months of Montessori Learning
Follow Marie @ Child Led Life’s board Montessori For Us on Pinterest.
Such a neat project! I love the final product. I never would have thought to do such a thing. It looks like so much fun!
Renae’ last post was: Montessori-inspired Study of Europe w/ Free Printables
Omgoodness, I LOVE the treasure box idea — we’re just gearing up to do some “me on the maps” and we might have to borrow this 😉
Jennifer’ last post was: Montessori Continent Boxes & An Exciting Announcement
How fun! I like DIY activities with things we already have at home. 😉
The Natural Homeschool’ last post was: 3 Montessori-Inspired “Land, Water & Air” Activities & Printables
Thank you for sharing! We haven’t done North America yet, and I need to remember yours once we start with it already. Love to see your kids learning together!
I love the idea of having children help with the design of the geography boxes. We’re going to have to tackle that project soon. You make it look fun!
Bess’ last post was: Shapes of Geography
Love your great DIY ideas. Perfect!
kimberly’ last post was: Montessori and Attachment Parenting
Marie, you are always so resourceful and use what you have. I love this concept of starting from the planet Earth and working down to where you live. Awesome post!
Vanessa’ last post was: 3 DIY Montessori Inspired Sensory Habitats
These look like so much fun! Especially for our tactile learners 🙂
Thanks for sharing on this week’s Mom 2 Mom Link Up Party 🙂 Hope you join us again, Rachael @ Diamonds in the Roug
Rach D’ last post was: The Moment You Realize You ARE That Large Family!
Hi Rach! Thank you for stopping by. Glad to link up!
What a fun learning project! I look forward to these sorts of things with my kiddos as they get older. Thank you for linking up with Tuesday Talk 🙂 Look for a new “LIKE” on your facebook page from Mitchael Journey!
Blessings,
~Andrea
Andrea Mitchael’ last post was: A New Song from Coastal Worship || Tuesday Talk
Hi Andrea! So glad to link up! We love hands on projects and know your kids will too! Thanks for stopping by.
What a great idea! Thank you for linking up with the Frugal Family Linky!
Thanks for stopping by, Helen! Glad to link up!
Ooooh, this is clever and fun! I’m pinning this to my Deliberate HOMESCHOOLING board.
Thanks for sharing and for linking up to the #SHINEbloghop.
Wishing you a lovely weekend.
xoxo
Jennifer | The Deliberate Mom’ last post was: How to Refresh and Resurrect Old Blog Posts
Thank you for stopping by! Great to link up with you. 🙂
This is a fun way to learn about geography, way to go…..very creative and resourceful! Stopping by from Thoughtful Spot Weekly blog hop where you are being featured this week.
susen @Dabbling Momma’ last post was: Calming Bedtime Books
Thank you! We had a lot of fun and never spent a dime! Thanks for stopping by.