 Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldoch Way. I'm Jessica. And today's video is going to be about our consonant boxes. So I actually made our first set of consonant boxes when Emily was in kindergarten, I think, maybe the summer of preschool into kindergarten. And I have a blog post that details everything that was in those original consonant boxes. So I will link that in the description box down below in case your kiddos are younger and you're thinking, oh my gosh, I can't put all of that in my consonant boxes. They'll swallow it or they'll put it in their mouth or they won't, you know, keep up with it. And at that point, most of what was in our consonant boxes was books, those little safari LTD like tube figures, and some laminated maps. Like it wasn't a ton of stuff. It was just enough that we would pull the boxes out and she kind of knew like what animals and what landmarks belonged on what continent. Like that was kind of the gist of it. I never had any rhythm or rules or structure as to how those were ever used. We just used them. We utilized them when we felt like it. And it was a really great way to introduce her to the different continents and what was in them. Well, since we were getting ready to start traveling the world, I decided it was time to up my consonant box game because our consonant boxes have been sitting for about six months at least unused because they were just too childish for Emily. So we are aging them up a little bit and I have mostly new stuff in them. And I want to share that with you today. So I am going to turn you around and open all of our consonant boxes and show you what is in them. But first, I wanted to let you know that all of the links in what you're gonna see today will be in a blog post that will also be in the description box down below. It'll be an updated consonant box post. And the way we're planning to use these is because traveling world follows or what we're gonna do is because all of the continents or all the countries are grouped into a continent is I'm gonna specifically pull that continent box when we're studying the countries there. And I'm just gonna kind of pull it to the front, leave it out and let her have full access to it. Now she'll have access to all of the boxes at any point in time. So she has free reign to do anything she wants with them. But I really want to make a point to kind of like shrew, if you will, the continent that we're going to be spending time in while we're spending time there. So it'll be a really great kind of introduction to it before we dive a little deeper. It'll also be a way for her to become more familiar with the other countries in that continent that maybe we're not specifically studying at that time. Before I show you guys the boxes, know that there is going to be a blog post linked in the description that will have all of the details for what is in each of these boxes. So you can go there for all of the links. Now, before I show you what's in the boxes, I wanna show you the box itself. These boxes are from treasures from Jennifer and they are absolutely amazing. Now they were my splurge item. I will link the blog post to our original constant boxes in which I used just a plastic box and they worked fine. We had them for over three years. There was nothing really wrong with them. It was just time that we upgraded and I had the ability to be able to finally purchase the box that have been kind of my dream box for ever. And I will show you why. Each of these boxes is well made wood. Like they are definitely quality. They each have the continent and the name on the lid in the corresponding Montessori color. They also have the name and the continent on the ends of the boxes. So if you have them lined up on a shelf, you can see them easily. And then under the lid, they have a full map with the continent in that color where it belongs. So the quality of them is amazing. Now I'm gonna show you inside two of the seven boxes, mainly because a lot of the items repeat and because I'm gonna link everything in that blog post. I'm just gonna show you inside Africa and Antarctica because Antarctica is a tiny bit different than the others and you'll see why in just a minute. So inside each of the boxes, I have the set from Hatching Curiosity that we absolutely love and that includes the cloth maps for each of the seven continents with the landmark pins. So you can either just lay these on the map or you can actually pin them to the map itself. And again, we have these for each continent. The control for the pin, so this shows you where each pin should be laid. And I love that she accents everyone with the corresponding Montessori color too so that everything in this box matches. If for some reason everything was to get mixed up, we would know that all of the green went back in the green Africa box. And then we also have the animal and landmark cards from Hatching Curiosity as well. They are beautiful. The animal cards include the area they live in, what animal classification they are, and then what they eat. And you can see the color even extends to these. And then the landmark cards have a fact on the back as well as some thinking questions. And again, has the continent and color. So you have tons of different resources for that continent. I also have the geo puzzle for Africa in here. And that is from this geo puzzle box. And then the last thing I have in each of the boxes is two books. Now this one, Explore Africa, the Bobby Kalman books we had in our old continent boxes and we still really enjoyed them so we moved them over. And we used to have a rookie read as well but Emily's outgrown the rookie read so we purchased the true books as an upgrade and they are more for third to fifth grade. So that is what is in the Africa box. Now what is different in the Antarctica box is because there is not a geo puzzle for Antarctica, what I did was use the world puzzle. So in this box it has the world in it because Antarctica is obviously pictured in the world puzzle and because I wanted a place to put this puzzle but it still has all of the other amazing things that the other boxes have, that is just the only difference is that's actually the world puzzle. So we still have that beautiful cloth map from Hatching Curiosity, the landmark and master here, all of those beautiful cards and the two books.