Geography in revised Mods 1-3

That’s correct. The main living books for the new map notebooks will be Hungry Planet and Material World. We will include other living book recommendations also for the various grade levels. Letters from Egypt will be recommended for the older students in the Africa notebook and additional shorter books / picture books will be added as recommended for the younger children, or for that matter, the whole family to enjoy. Explore the Holy Land and Traveller in Rome will no longer be recommended; but as always, feel free to substitute if you want to.

Here’s the format of the new geography map notebooks, in case it will help you get a better visual picture of them.

• The map drills will be provided for you on two-page spreads. A labeled map will be on the left and a blank map on the right. Since the notebook will be spiral, you will fold back the left side of the book and write in the countries you’ve already learned onto the blank map. Then you will open up the book and check your work against the labeled map on the left side. It will also highlight any new countries to learn for the next map drill, walking you through all the countries little by little.
• Every few lessons you will take a break from the map drill to do a Meet the Families lesson, which will direct you to a family living in the region you are studying who are featured in Hungry Planet or Material World. Narration questions will be provided to walk you through those pages and guide students to look carefully and think about the photographs and travelogue notes there.
• Following the Meet the Families lesson, students will do a close-up map study of that particular country where the family lives. This will involve tracing the country’s map provided on the left page, transferring it to a blank right page, and filling in as many details as desired to create your own map of the country. (Additional blank pages are provided in the back to do close-up studies with any other countries that you want to.)
• Recommended Reading suggestions will be scattered throughout, which will provide book titles for the various grade levels. The picture books for the younger / family should be available at your library.

So that’s the overview of this new geography resource that will be included in the revised lesson plans. I’m hoping that having all the maps ready to go in a notebook and having additional living book options and tying in Material World and Hungry Planet will make geography study simpler for busy moms. We’re also including more historical geography map references in the history lessons, by the way. But the dedicated geography lessons will be focused on modern day.

This busy mom is so excited for these! =)

Sounds fabulous! Sonya, I bet you’re regretting tell us all there were revisions coming since everyone is so excited they can hardly stand themselves.

Absolutely awesome! Will the map notebooks be for all ages? My oldest will turn 8 next term.

This all sounds wonderful, Sonya!  Can’t wait!!!  Just out of curiosity…was Anne Voskamp’s book originally recommended in the older edition?  I have only purchased Module’s 4,5 and 6 so far.  

Marmiemama, the Ann Voskamp book is recommended currently as the geography portion of Module 2. It’s been hit or miss with people liking it. I personally don’t think it’s the worst resource and my children enjoy it well enough, but I’m excited to see the revamping that will be done for fall of the first three modules.

All of the new map notebooks will refer to families in both Material World and Hungry Planet.

The book replacing Famous Men of Rome will be The Story of the Romans by H. A. Guerber, edited by Christine Miller (Nothing New Press edition).

Here is a link to all the books that will be used in the new version of the Matthew through Acts & Ancient Rome study.