Leave-Behind An Easy Geography Lesson

Geography is one of the things in my daughter's Montessori curriculum that surprised traditional old me.  How is geography basic preschool fare?  
It's a little genius though.  Montessori philosophy believes that children must first learn about the physical world around them - to use their senses to explore and to know that everything has a name so that children tend to want to learn everything.   Of course my usual dilemma is finding the time to recreate all those wonderful homeschooling lessons, like this one from the truly amazing Pinay Homeschooler.  So yet again, here's one of my working mama solutions.  

I created a permanent spot on her playroom shelf for things to spark interest in geography while I'm at the office.  Books and a play model, that's all.  That's enough to stand out as something curious she wants to explore.  "What's that?" she asked, the first time I changed the shelf. I leave it alone for her to explore if she wants to.  But at bedtime, I pick up the book and paper model and it becomes our bedtime story.  Now I wish I could take credit for building the model but I ask my driver to do it during his downtime waiting time.  Haha!

These are available at National Bookstore or Fully Booked - pretty reasonable prices too at ~300 pesos.
I glue the seams with clear glue to reinforce them for our shelf.

Sometimes I just switch up the matching book so that there's something new to read:

Same paper models, different book.  This was an old book when my sisters and I were kids!

When inspiration struck, I left this tray activity behind on her shelf to do:

Bridges get the best play out of them, even on the weekend:

Her ponies and the bridge.  She's making the pedestrian walkway swing open for ships to pass underneath.

Recreating the Rialto Bridge in Venice with Duplos and a new back story.

Sometimes, just a book is enough:

A Stonehenge Pop-up Book!  A gift from her favourite Ninang.

** Nowadays Ladybug Girl is a sponge for information.  I guess it's all part of turning six.  My nerd mom books say she's building 'cognitive' skills on top of the sensory development she began to master in preschool.   All I know is that she'll surprise me with some random fact like "Mona means Miss that's why Leonardo da Vinci's painting means Miss Lisa".  I always shake my head in wonder and ask "how did you know that?".  She smiles widely.  "Easy!"  So I try to adapt her ethos in our easy geography lessons at home.   We make it work, folks.  We make it work.