Safari Lapbook

My youngest child is wild about animals. His primary interest is in the animals from Africa. While I was trying to create the different lapbooks for my other kids, he wanted one for himself. After some thought, he decided that he wanted a "Safari Lapbook". Well, I wasn't sure what that exactly was but I tried to put together a little something that could pass as a safari lapbook.

Since most of the animals that he is interested in reside in Africa, I first started with a map of Africa with each country defined. I got this map from a Google images search of "map of Africa". My original concept was to have the map of Africa in the middle and have a pocket for various countries that held some of the animals found in those countries. I thought for a while about how to arrange the file folders to accommodate such a large space and then decided to make use of that extra poster board in the closet!:)

When you open the lapbook I wanted to have something where we could talk about how you get to Africa. I wanted to make sure he understood that it is not down the street!:) I used a lapbook template from Homeschoolshare http://www.homeschoolshare.com/lapbooking_resources.php#Templates_Listed_by_Divisions_)

and Google images for the clip art safari guide.

After further opening the book, you will find a T book where we highlighted the "big five" animals found in Africa. Again I used a template for the book from Homeschoolshare and Google images for the pictures of the animals. Son #3 cut and pasted these in place. I had fun making the little road for this section. Silly, I know, because I am not sure there is actually black top roads in the safari but it is cute in the book! I used actual street signs from Africa for the street signs along the road. Again, Google images helped me out there.

Now for the main part- when the lapbook is fully opened you can see the map of Africa and the large matchbooks for the various countries. No rhyme or reason for my selection of the countries. Many I chose them so that I could spread them out around the map. I used a couple of great sites for the animal images. Majority of them were from the country I was focusing on for that matchbook.

http://www.africaguide.com/wildlife/index.htm

http://www.animalinfo.org/country/chad.htm

http://www.animalinfo.org/country/nigeria.htm

http://www.sa-venues.com/wildlife/wildlife_crocodile.htm

http://www.kenyatravelideas.com/kenya-animals.html

http://www.sa-venues.com/wildlife/

http://www.wildmadagascar.org/wildlife/animals.html

http://www.wildegypt.com/

http://www.selamta.net/wildlife.htm

Ultimately, my goal is for Son #3 to write about each animal on the back of their card. Hopefully, as we continue in our geography studies, we can add more animals and maybe more countries.