Edible Continents VI and VII: Antarctica and Australia

Marshmallow penguins to go with our Antarctica maps

For our Antarctica edible maps, we threw a party! Andrew and Kristen were home on Spring Break, and we also invited Kara, Collin, Annie, plus Collin's brother, Dan, his wife, Nomi, and son, Eddy, so we had something like 16 Antarctica maps!

And of course, Antarctica wouldn't be complete without penguins, so we made these gorgeous guys from marshmallows, Oreos, Tootsie rolls (heads) and candy corn. (Recipe here.)Yum! Not really. But they were fun to make!

We choose to represent Antarctica with ice cream - what else? We had to eat our maps quickly, and all the white doesn't make for the best photographs, but I'm pretty sure this was the most appreciated map project of the year!

Here's our key:

- White chocolate chips = mountains
- Mini Marshmallow = Mt. Vinison (highest peak)
- Whipped topping = Lambert-Fisher Glacier
- Pretzel stick = geographic South Pole (I'd rather have had small peppermint sticks, but couldn't find at this time of year)
- Toothpick = magnetic South Pole

Faith shows off her creations.

Andrew and Annie seemed to enjoy the experience, too.























A few weeks previous we had made Australia maps from pancakes. I know it look garish, but apart from the gummy fish (Great Barrier Reef), it didn't taste too bad! (The small piece is Tasmania.)

Mini sausages: mountains

Powdered sugar: deserts

Green tinted coconut = tropics

Sprinkles = grasslands

Strawberry - Ayer's Rock

Gummy fish = Great Barrier Reef

Well, that's the end of our edible map series! In case you want to see any of the previous maps you can find them here:



North America  (Cookie Maps)

South America (Tortillas)

Europe  (Pizza maps)

Asia  (Rice/Stir-fry veggies)

Africa  (Injera Bread)

Our geography assignments have turned now from studying the peoples, cultures, and places of the world to learning how to draw memory maps of the world.  (Paul, 4th grade, is focusing on drawing the U.S.) First, everyone must memorize a minimum of three coordinates for each continent and practice drawing the continent outlines on a Mercator map projection. We have large laminated maps and blank grids to use for practice. In another week we'll add in filling in the countries in each continent.

Then the fun begins, when over the course of three weeks, the students will spend time each day creating their own memory map. During the evening they are allowed to study by looking at reference maps, but no outside resources may be referenced during the daytime before or during drawing time. Hopefully, I will post pictures of finished maps in late May!