Where is Madagascar? Is it actually a country or just a movie?
Our family loves to pretend to visit different countries and various states…and Madagascar caught our eye. First, we checked out a couple of books about Madagascar from our local library. These books gave an overview and help us see what we want to focus on.
Homemade Center Piece:
After a quick look through the books, my seventh grade daughter and I decided to create a fun centerpiece featuring The Avenue of Baobabs (huge trees). It took a while to collect that many toilet paper rolls! It is amazing to know that the baobabs can grow to be 36 feet across. Here is a picture description of how we created our simple center piece:
Slide Presentation
For the last few countries we have “PRETEND” visited, we have used a shared family slide presentation as our base. We make a title slide and then on the next slide we list items of interest. In this case it was things important to Madagascar. Since our kids are old enough, we put them to work choosing a topic from our items of interest to make slide about it. Here are what our items of interest looked like for Madagascar.
Topics of Interest to Use to Create Slides
Map, official language
Flag and meaning
Natural resources
Spiny Thicket
Baobabs – Avenue of Baobabs
Octopus Tree
Daily life in Madagascar
Important crops –Coffee Beans, sugarcane, vanilla, cloves, rice, cassava, bananas, cocoa beans
Animals in Madagascar
Zebu wrestling
Fanorona
Hira Gasy
Salegy music
Food from Madagascar- bonbon coco, samosas, mokary, curry, banana fritters, samosas
Famadihana (Well, that is an out of the ordinary tradition!)
Landscape of Madagascar (for landscape it is interesting to link to a video that shows the scenery)
Starting the Slides:
It is intriguing to see the kids create a slide with pictures, descriptions, and links to short videos. Even my husband took his turn and created a slide. 😊
We started creating the slide presentation at least a couple of weeks before we actually “PRETENDED” to visit. The kids worked on it during extra time at school and at home. It was a great diversion.
Dinner in Madagascar
Our family then planned a time to “PRETEND” to visit Madagascar. We planned food to go with our evening. For Madagascar we made a simple rice dish, banana fritters, and bonbon coco. Here is a link to the banana fritters. Our bonbon coco was pretty much a “fail” so we won’t bother sharing that recipe, but it was all part of the adventure 😊. The banana fritters are going to make it into our family recipes!
Example Slides
We watched the slide presentation by hooking a computer up to our TV. Each person described the slides he/she created.
And the slides go on…
My favorite thing about pretending to visit a country is to see the learning that is going on in our home. Minds are broadened. Some of my kids are married and/or in college. They participated with us and fashioned their slide. We waited for them to come home to visit before taking our “PRETEND” trip.
Your trip to Madagascar can be crafted to fit your family. I was just trying to present some ideas to get your creative juices flowing. Enjoy. The options are limitless. Life is what you make it.
Featured Image by shell300 from Pixabay
Books: Exploring Countries Madagascar by Ellen Frazel, 2013 and We Visit Madagascar by Tammy Gagne, 2013
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