Madagascar Report

Today was a big day for Nathan--he gave an oral report based on the research paper he wrote for the homeschool co-op writing unit. The 5th and 6th graders had to pick an African country to write about, and he picked Madagascar. He did a great job on his report and got good feedback from his teachers. I was happy with how self-motivated he was to get the report done, and also to work on his display. He did stuff with Powerpoint as well as figured out the pictures he wanted to use. I really didn't have to do much at all, which was nice. My parents have friends who work for the same organization they do, and they have actually visited Madagascar. They were kind enough to email us some pictures, and then we also got a few off the internet.

It turns out Madagascar is an interesting country. Did you know that 1/4 of the plant and animal species in the world are found in Madagascar? Many of these species are native only to Madagascar. Also, most of the people there are not African by heritage. They actually are descended from Indonesians, who somehow traveled over there a long time ago. "Malagasy" is the adjective you use to describe things from Madagascar.

Actually, all the oral reports were very interesting. I stayed and listened to about half of them, including Nathan's. He was pretty nervous, so his first few sentences were directed to his notecards, but after he had to start pointing out things on his display board, he loosened up and started looking at the audience. He did really well, overall.

After all the kids were done, they had an "African feast". Everyone brought in food from their African country. We brought a dish called "varenga", which is boiled, shredded, roasted beef. We put it over rice, since that is a very important staple in madagascar, and they eat it for every meal. It was really good! I was amazed at how much food there was, and also at the great variety. People really went all out! A lot of stuff was pretty starchy, so I didn't sample it, but everything I had was very good!