Geography River Model - Indoor Personal Follow-Up

I still need to get photos up of our "official river model" - Legoboy requested that I take and post photos of his personal follow-up work though, so here it is ;)  

Built with (surprised!?) Legos. 

Not entirely water-proof - and he learned some lessons on how high the banks should be to hold in the soil and keep the water flowing through the desired direction of the river, rather than out the sides. 

Thus, he learned some additional lessons on water-flow. 

We just set this one up on our dining room table with a bucket underneath to catch the water. As much as the official presentation is ideal (a full 3-d model and/or a low hill and a hose outside), I hope this post inspires you to create any of the Montessori key experiences out of whatever you have on hand! 

And yes we did all of this the day before Thanksgiving. We ate dinner at this table. ;) 

inserting rocks and stones

added some mulch and soil to see what would happen
as compared to JUST sand and soil

propped up the whole thing when the water wasn't running
the way he expected

pouring in the waterfall from "melting snow and rains"

the water is going underground -
underground rivulets ;)  

Sudden torrential rains caused some of it to wash away suddenly ;) 

He loved it :)


Here is a link to another idea too: 3D Geography - just before half-way down