I am looking for a great Geo. course for this yr., specifically World Geo. Something where the kids will learn, but it alot of fun too. Does anyone have any suggestions for early elementary and beyond( for later). I have been looking, but haven't found anything yet. I will keep looking of course, but it is always nice to hear suggestions. We like a hands-on approach, but if the course doesn't include that heavily, I can always add that component. You can send me a private message if you'd like or post here. Thank you! 2 Chronicles 7:14
Rod & Staff's (www.rodandstaffbooks.com) 4th grade is world geography with lots of mapmaking involved. The content is more like a story about a child from each area studied than like textbook facts-only. Christian Light Education (www.clp.org) is also world geography, but a little more textbooky. You can use it with LightUnit study guides, or study-by-textbook. Steck-Vaughn has a series called Maps, Globes & Graphs for first through sixth grades that are quite useful. Very like a workbook, with instruction and color and questions/exercises to answer/do. Not a complete curriculum, I think, but a great supplement. Hammond (the map people) also have a maps-instruction book called Discovering Maps. I got mine from CLE.
This is what we use for geography. My dd9 LOVES it and begs to do it. I only set aside a 30 minute time frame on Fridays for geography which she says isn't enough and she does it on her own time. http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm
We used Maps Globes and Graphs from the second grade, and are completing the final book F in the next school year. This year Im adding McGraw Hill "The World and Its People", book one, the eastern hemisphere, with the accompanying workbook and tests. Also National geographic have a fantastic education site, which is still free and has projects, with all the materials and worksheets available for printing. Im not sure I can do links here, but Ill try http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/?ar_a=1 I particularly liked their "Beyond Borders" unit, we are on lesson three at the moment and it has been very useful.
We will be using Galloping the Globe this year. It is a unit study curriculum - includes literature , Bible , science , history , some language arts stuff . Basically everything but Math . Penmanship or words for spelling can be drawn from each country you are using to enhance the unit study approach. I believe it's designed for K-4th grade. I will be using it with my 1st grader and Kinder. It has a list of core books that are used with each country ... some I bought used on the internet and a few our library has. In a few weeks we will start with a month of intro. to basic geography ... maps , globes , compass/ directions , geography terms like grassland , plateau , desert etc. using Evan Moore's Basic geography book for K-2 and then move into Galloping the Globe after that.
We are using "Getting Ahead World Geography" its a 4 DVD set. It has 16 countries. We of course add our own stuff for a hands on experience. We are doing a study on Canada and even I am learning things I did not know!
I forgot: Spectrum workbooks also do Geography. And www.schoolexpress.com, and edhelper.com, and lots of other sites like those also cover geography topics, for a small-ish subscription fee.
Cally, How long do you guys study each country? I don't know if you guys are like me, but sometimes when I start looking through homeschool catalogs and hs websites I am like a kid in a Christmas store! . And when I go to a homeschool store, my husband has to "peel me" out of there. There is so much to look at! Thanks again everyone you are such a blessing!!!!
We study each one for two weeks. The first week we watch the video and gather as much information as possible together and read about it. (Which includes encyclopedia research and library searches for books) The next week each child picks something they like about the country and they get to study just that. They then have to do a project for the thing they picked. A paper, drawing, play, puppet show, a movie on their camcorder (its a cheap one), a special recipe they found, building something out of legos, or anything else they feel they want to do. We did this last year for American History.
No, but I have a great idea on how to learn geography. There is a yahoo group called Postcard Kids http://groups.yahoo.com/group/postcardkids/ where you can exchange postcards with other homeschoolers all over the US and sometimes from other countries. For more postcard exchanging go to www.postcrossing.com. We get a lot of international postcards this way.
