Learn About Brazil with Hands-On Activities

I earn a commission from products purchased through links in this post.

Sharing is caring!

It is almost time for the 2016 Summer Games!  I’m honestly not much of a sports fan myself, but the Olympics provide a perfect opportunity for a unit study. Before we get to the summer games themselves, let’s learn about Brazil with these fun hands-on activities.

Unit studies provide a way to touch on a lot of subject areas within a common theme.  

I plan summer unit studies that aren’t as intensive as a school year unit study.  My goal is to engage my kids and open their eyes to new experiences.  If they are interested in our subject area, they will seek out more information.

My kids saw me assembling the items for this unit study and begged to start. Hannah literally asked me every morning for a week if we could PLEASE learn about Brazil.  That is what I call a homeschool win!

Hands-On Activities to Learn About Brazil

Here are the activities we did to learn about Brazil:

Rice Krispy Map 

Making a map using candy is a great way to keep kids interested in geography.  This can be adapted for use with any country. Rice Krispies treats are simple enough to make that even little kids can help with almost every step.

1. First, make a batch of Rice Krispies treats.  I used the traditional recipe, found on the back of the cereal box. Pour the mixture onto a flat surface, cover with parchment paper, and roll flat.  My pans were not large enough, so I used a piece of cardboard wrapped with aluminum foil. Be sure to spray the foil with nonstick spray!
2. Once the rice krispy has cooled, start cutting pieces away to form the country, in this lesson, Brazil. I followed the outline of an online map. Don’t worry about your rice krispy map being perfect!  You just want the right general shape.
3. Coat the entire country in frosting so that the candy pieces will stick. We chose green because Brazil has such a lush landscape.  
4. Designate different candies to represent different landmarks on your map. We needed candies to represent the rainforest (mint M&M’s), large rivers (blue Twizzlers), the capital (gummy Sweet Tarts), cities (jelly beans), and the Olympics site (M&M’s). 
5. Start placing the landmark candies on the map. We put one geological feature on at a time.  The order that worked well for us was rivers, capital, cities, rainforests, and lastly the Olympics site.

Brazilian Flag

1.  Turn a green sheet of construction paper to landscape, longer horizontally than vertically.
2. Cut a yellow sheet of construction paper into a rhombus and glue it on the green paper.
3. Trace a circle on blue paper and cut it out.  Glue it centered on the yellow rhombus.
4. Draw a curved horizontal banner on the circle with a white crayon.
5. Draw stars on the blue circle with a white crayon.  You can also use white star stickers.
6. Write ‘ORDEM E PROGRESSO’ on the white banner with a Sharpie.  It means Order and Progress.

Coffee Filter Butterfly

The Amazon rainforest is home to over 2,000 types of beautiful butterflies.  Coffee is also one of the largest crops in Brazil, so it seems right to blend the two facts into one craft.

I showed my children photographs of real butterflies that live in the Amazon to give them inspiration, but they were free to design their butterfly anyway they wanted.

1.  Draw on white coffee filters with washable markers.
2.  Lightly spray the coffee filter with water.  This will blend the colors a bit, softening the design. We live in the Pacific Northwest, so we just set the coffee filters outside in the rain for a few minutes.
3. Set the coffee filter aside and let it dry.
4. While the coffee filter is drying, glue googly eyes to a clothespin.
5.  Use the clothespin to pinch the middle of the dry coffee filter.  Each side of the coffee filter will be one wing of the butterfly.

Binoculars

No unit study on Brazil is complete without a set of binoculars!  The kids need a way to be on the lookout for amazing Amazon jungle animals. A fun game is to hide jungle animal toys or cutouts and have the kids find them.

Making pretend binoculars is incredibly easy and cheap.

1. Decorate two toilet paper tubes or a paper towel tube cut in half.  I recommend always saving these items for future crafts. You can use markers, stickers, paint, stamps, or any other craft supply to decorate the tubes.
2. Attach the two tubes side-by-side using washi tape or duct tape.
3. Punch a hole on two sides.
4. Tie a large piece of yarn through the holes.  This will provide the kids a way to wear their binoculars and keep their hands free.

Carnival Headpiece

Carnival is a huge part of Brazilian culture.  It involves music, dancing, parades, and fancy costumes, so I knew my children would love it!  We made fancy headpieces by putting a plastic sun visor on top of our heads instead of over our eyes.

1. Collect all of your supplies (visor, feathers, plastic gemstones, sequins, and a hot glue gun) and Google Brazilian carnival headpieces for inspiration.
2. Design your headpiece creation before gluing anything.  It will be hard to move after it is glued.
3. Glue the decorations onto the visor.  I allowed my 11-year-old to hot glue her feathers and gems, but I glued them on for my 8-year-old.  Hot glue burns can hurt.

Brazilian Food

Cooking with kids is a great educational experience.  

They learn the obvious math and science skills, but they can also learn about other cultures.  

I try to include a meal or snack in all of our geography lessons.  If you are making something drastically different from your normal menu, I recommend setting aside a weekend afternoon so you are not rushed.

For our Brazilian meal we made:

Brazilian braised pork in passion fruit, orange, and guajillo peppers

Jasmine rice

Brazilian style beans

Brigadeiros – I wasn’t happy with the recipe we tried, so I decided not to share it.  The brigadeiros kept falling apart!

Kids Books About Brazil

I start just about every unit study by reserving books at my local library. Many libraries will allow you to reserve books online.  This saves me so much time!  I just stop in once or twice a week and the sweet librarians have my selections all ready for me to take home.

I like to choose a combination of fiction and nonfiction books for unit studies.  Sometimes a fictional story that includes accurate information is easier for children to relate to than a nonfiction book.

I do not always read every book I check out.  They are always attractively arranged in a basket for the kids to look at, though.  It is not unusual to see them leafing through a reference book to check out the photographs.

These are the books I reserved for our Brazil lesson:

Nature’s Green Umbrella: Tropical Rain Forests by Gail Gibbons

Last update on 2026-09-16 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

The Umbrella by Jan Brett

Last update on 2026-09-16 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Pele, King of Soccer by Monica Brown

Last update on 2026-09-16 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Jungle DK Eyewitness Book

Last update on 2026-09-15 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry

Last update on 2026-09-15 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

This Place is Wet by Vicki Cobb

Last update on 2026-09-16 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Brazil by Sarah Tieck

Last update on 2026-09-16 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Movies

Movies are a fun addition to any lesson.  They are perfect for family movie night, or just to wrap up the unit study. These movies take place in Brazil.

Rio

Last update on 2026-09-16 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Rio II

Last update on 2026-09-16 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Lea to the Rescue (American Girl)

Last update on 2026-09-16 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

I love it when I can find educational shows to coordinate with a lesson! These suggestions will help your student learn a little bit more about Brazil.

1. Magic Schoolbus in the Rainforest (Season 3, episode 12)
2. Little Pim – Portugese

Boredom Busting Basket

Boredom busting baskets are full of engaging educational materials that the kids are free to access any time.  I decided to make a Brazil-themed basket to go along with our unit.

This week I included an Usborne Puzzle jungle book, a Jigsaw Atlas book, a Brazil sticker dress up doll book, flags of the world, clocks, alphabet stamps and stamp pad, and do-a-dot paint dabbers.

Additional Resources to Learn About Brazil

I frequently check out the offerings on teacherspayteachers.com to see if there are any resources that might fit a need.  There is no sense recreating the wheel if you don’t have to.  Many of the materials are even free! For the Brazil lesson I found two free resources that I could use.

I printed, laminated, and magnetized the rainforest word wall cards.  They are hanging on my whiteboard in our school area.  I plan for Hannah and Ben to use them as story starters, but kids could also alphabetize the words or organize them by syllable.

Keeping math skills sharp over the summer is very beneficial.  Teachers Pay Teachers has a multiplication and division fact color by number worksheet with a rainforest theme.  This is a little more fun than just straight math fact drilling.

The Olympic Opening Ceremony airs Friday, August 5th, 2016.  I hope you will tune in with your children and let them be part of the experience.  The world has had so much turmoil and sadness lately that we need something to unite us all.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Related Posts:

How to Create a Unit Study for Any Topic

Create a Geography Curriculum Your Kids Will Enjoy