Materials for the lesson

Skewer Sticks.
Paper-tape.
A quite large piece of styrofoam (ideal for many crafts).
A green textile strip (river).
A large piece of blue textile for the sea (maybe an old bed-sheet or tablecloth)
A tablecloth (beige color if possible).

The children can bring from their homes:
Some earth from a plant pot (about a cup).
Some green leaves from a plant/tree.
Matchboxes (or small boxes from pills or creams).
From their toys, they can bring small stuff such as animals, boats, ships (model sizes, play-mobiles).  And anything else one can imagine would fit well in such a model.

Teachers’ bell.

Layout of the classroom

 The desks in the middle, all together like a big table where we will make our model.

Teacher and students will be standing and moving all around the big table. They will create there one big model of all the environment the lesson describes.

1^st Phase

Styrofoam can be the base of the model as it is soft and easy to use. It will be covered with the beige table-cloth to represent the land.

According to the sequence the teacher wants to follow, we construct the model:

Here we follow the books’ sequence:

1. We create the mountains. With skewer sticks and paper tape we create pyramids for mountains and place them randomly on the model. (8.1)

   The teacher talks about the mountains (as written in the text-book) and discusses with the students, letting them tell personal stories and experiences from hikes and excursions to the mountains.

2. We place the green strip of textile to run between the mountains to create the rivers (8.2)

   The teacher presents the rivers and seas (as described in the text-book).

3. With the strips or pieces of blues textile, we make the sea. We place upon it little boats and ships or we can even make paper boats (8.3)

   The teacher follows the lesson in his book to describe the fish and the life in the rivers and the seas.

2^nd Phase

1.  With the earth from the pots we create fields which the teacher describes (as in the book) (8.4).

2. With the small boxes we can create villages and cities (8.5).

3. With the animals the children brought we create a farm. If we do not have all the animals we need, we can draw some and place them accordingly.

4. The leaves we have can be stuck on skewer-sticks and become trees to create a forest. Leaves can also be found around the school premises.

3^rd Phase

 To liven up this world we created we can imitate animal and bird voices. Also, sea and waters running to sail our ships. Children will find many ways.

4^th  Phase

Summing up our lesson (8.6) What did we learn today about the various places of our country.