Montessori Continent Boxes, FREE DIY Materials List To Create Your Boxes At Home

These are the resources I have really liked and found helpful (there is so much more to be found) in putting together our boxes.  I have only shown our North America box.



Our North American box was larger because it is our continent, and I made extra content for our country and province. The rest of our boxes are much more simple, and I will show them in a later post - there are still a few things I am working on. 
These are links I found useful to put together the basics of these boxes at a lower cost. There are countless other materials, and books available for unit study of continents.  The blog community has been extremely generous in sharing a large amount of continent study information - a couple I found helpful were Montessori Tidbits and Living Montessori Now among others.
I also used basic clear shoe boxes from Home Depot that I bought at the time for .88 cents ea, and decorated with a map and label.  There are many creative ways to house these materials and this worked well for us.

If you do not or cannot purchase the Montessori Geography Puzzle maps or you are looking for an additional activity you can make Pin Maps for each Continent.
To make these all you need is a printed map of the continent (easy to find online), and flags for each that have been taped to pins or tooth picks. Place your map on some type of cork or foam mat(I often cut up old puzzle floor mats) for pinning your flags.
This is fantastic FREE resource to find your flags in a great scale to make your flag pins.
I also printed the flags from here to use as a control chart with our flag cards.
This site is filled with amazing information listed by continent
This site is also amazing!!

North America

US Landmarks and Symbols -- free 3-part Montessori cards
Flags - sheets
Flag cards - make your own for free!!!
Animals Free cards
North American Landmark Cards - for .99 cents
Native American Homes FREE Montessori for Everyone
People and life image cards Montessori Print Shop $4.29
Food Cards Montessori Print Shop $2.89
Huge amount of Canadian content to print
Animal figures
Arctic figure toob

South America

Flags - sheets FREE
Flag cards - make your own for free!!!
Animals - cards FREE
South American Landmark Cards - for .99 cents
People and life image cards Montessori Print Shop $4.29
Food Cards Montessori Print Shop $2.89
Animal figures
Galapagos toob

Europe

Flags - sheets FREE
Flag cards - make your own for free!!!
Animals - cards FREE
European Landmark Cards for .99 cents
People and life image cards $4.29 Montessori Print Shop
Food Cards  Montessori Print Shop  $2.89
Animal figures
I purchased these animals individually on amazon since I have not found a package set.

Africa

flags FREE sheet
Flag cards - make your own for free!!!
Animals - cards FREE
Animals cards  flag cards Instruments - from Montessori Tidbits
African Landmark  - Cards for .99 cents
People and life image cards Montessori Print Shop $4.29
Food Cards Montessori Print Shop $2.89
Animal figures
Free Animal Cards
Free Africa Landmarks & Flags

Asia

flags - sheets FREE
Flag cards - make your own for free!!!
Animals - cards FREE
Asian Landmark Cards for .99 cents
People and life image cards Montessori Print Shop $4.29
Food Cards Montessori Print Shop $2.89
Animal figures
Free Animal Cards

Australia

Land mark cards FREE from Montessori Print Shop
Flag cards - make your own for free!!!
flags - sheets FREE
Flags 3 part cards free
Animals - cards FREE
Koala 3 part cards free Montessori Tidbits
People and life image cards Montessori Print Shop $4.29
Food Cards Montessori Print Shop $2.89
Australia fun facts cards FREE Montessori Print Shop
Animal figures
Free Animal Cards
A few Free Australian Landmark Cards 

Antarctica

Penguin 3 part cards free
Antarctica Continent Kit  - Montessori for Everyone 19.99 amazing kit!!
Flag cards - make your own for free!!!
Animal figures
Free Animal Cards


This is a great FREE zip file with animal cards for all continents!!! from Walk Beside Me

Other Ideas and Continent Lesson resources

I ended up creating all of the cards for my North America, South America and Australia boxes. 
I am in the process of making the cards for the remaining continents. 
My cards include animals, people and culture, instruments, food & crops, landmarks and flags.

It may seem like a daunting task but was quite fun when I actually got started.  I understand that this is time consuming, and not for everyone so I tried to list the resources I found and used many of.
Montessori for Everyone has gorgeous continent study kits and Montessori Print has amazing ones as well, and you can purchase the files you need individually to supplement what you may wish to make or find for free.

Continents 3 part cards Cards-  for .99 cents

Continent Box Command Cards set 1  set 2 - Elementary Cards for .99 cents per set


Free Control Maps Labeled & Unlabeled - shared by Helpful Garden  you can use these to make pin maps also and you can get your flag images from here.

Free Continents 3 part cards and booklets

Free Parts of a Flag & Booklet


World Continents Pin Maps FREE Montessori Print Shop

World landmarks toob miniature replicas of the world's most famous architectural structures with our Around the World  
Montessori Tidbits makes a set of 3 part cards to go along with this toob that you can find here.

Inexpensive way to make flags for your continent boxes!!

How I found coins for our boxes and storage

The bags I made for our animals - you can use animal 3 part cards only but the figures are fun.  I tried to be sure I had a card for each of our figures.

World Continent Montessori Puzzle, Control Map and labels

Our Continent mat that we made

Our Continents Globe that we made

I used this set of children's atlases

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