Name: Teach Them Diligently (Branson)
Start: 2025-05-15T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-17T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Branson, MO

Tagged: Map work, Visits to, Visits to Africa, younger students and map work

This topic has 5 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 5 months ago by sunnyellis.

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

Author
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October 8, 2015 at 8:37 am
Kelley
Participant
We are doing well with the bible reading portion of Genesis – Deuteronomy, but I feel like the Visits to Africa portion is moving along too quickly for my daughter, who just hasn’t really grasped maps yet, and it’s over her head. She’s 7 years old, and I think it’s too abstract for her to memorize countries and maps of a continent she isn’t familiar with. I get DVDs from the library that relate to ancient Egypt as much as I can find them, and look for YouTube videos because she’s a visual and auditory learner. Any suggestions on doing Visits to Africa, so she doesn’t immediately glaze over the second I pull it out?
October 8, 2015 at 9:00 am
HollyS
Participant
Is it the map drills that are a problem? We are using Visits to Europe this year and my 8yo isn’t a big fan so far…I’m pretty sure her issue is the writing, but I think maps are pretty abstract, so that may be another issue. Recently I started having her point to countries (instead of writing them out) and she prefers that. She also wasn’t a big fan of tracing the map of the UK…Her hand tired out pretty quickly. I’ll probably just have the older DC do that activity in the future. Maybe I’ll print a map for her to color instead.
One thing my DC enjoyed when we studied Africa were the Kids of Courage PDF books from Voice of the Martyrs. They have a few e-books on different African countries and contained lots of pictures. Another thing my DC love are Geopuzzles. I’ve been buying them as we study each continent. It makes a fun review on weeks where we don’t have a map drill. My DC also enjoy Youtube videos…We watched several on shadooffs.
October 8, 2015 at 9:07 am
MissusLeata
Participant
We are doing Visits to Africa this year, too, and my oldest is 8. I honestly do not expect them to memorize it. We mostly just color the countries, I don’t have them ever do the tracing. We point and say and color. My theory is that they are becoming familiar with the map, not memorizing it.

October 8, 2015 at 9:07 am
Kelley
Participant
That’s great! Thank you! I’ll check out the VOM resources.
She’s still establishing handwriting, so if she can’t write it perfectly, she doesn’t want to do it, or she wants me to write on the maps. Which is fine. I don’t mind doing that if she isn’t confident, because we’re working on handwriting elsewhere too.
I think puzzles would be a great alternative too. I didn’t even think of that! Maybe I need more coffee…
Thanks for the great ideas!
October 11, 2015 at 10:46 pm
sarah2106
Participant
When we do Visits To… I copy the list of countries in the back of the book. The kids cut apart the country names and as we add countries to the map they color the country and name to match.
One map copy lasts the entire year. I keep the country name little papers in an envelope with their map. It works really well and no writing needed.
October 15, 2015 at 11:04 pm
sunnyellis
Participant
We are doing visits to africa. I have a world map that we reference often. Whenever we do a specific country study, we point out where that country is…I actually use both a wall map and a small globe always pointing out where we are vs where Africa is.
DS 6 is actually doing great with the map drills.
With the make your own map stuff I just let him trace it on tracing paper rather than tracing and then recopying.
I also use the Operation World books which points out prayers for each country. I plan on switching to <span class=”a-size-medium sc-product-title a-text-bold”>Window on the World: When We Pray God Works</span> which is the children’s version. instead of the hungry planet/Material world assignments
Oh and for our read alouds I include missionary stories 2x per week. This year our missionary stories are african missionaries.
Wow…reading that I almost think I “have it all together”
My main point is that I have adapted the Visits to suit what works for us.
DS also loves the ridiculous songs from the CD Geography Songs by Kathy Troxel (Free with amazon prime). We will listen to the Africa songs and point out the countries as they are mentioned.