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Geography overview
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So I have been working through our overall homeschool plan. My son is four. History – check, literature – check, science – (k-6) check. Then I started looking at geography. I went through the Ambleside curriculum and it seems they have it mostly in the elementary years with just a few books and map drills later. Some of their discussion I think will get covered in some of the science. My thoughts and this is where I could use some well knowing eyes is
1. Home Geography for Primary Grades by C. C. Long
2. Expedition Earth
3. Map reading, topography, etc.
4. US geography
5. US geography
6. Map drills
I figured we would located places from the books we are reading as well. I sure don’t remember doing any geography in the later grades and other than map drills I am not sure what to do.
So, suggests? Thoughts? is this enough? What am I missing?
At age four I didn’t really do much geography with my kids. One thing we have been doing during our morning readings, however, is labeling our maps with a map dot each time we learn about a place in a book we are reading. I keep a log on the side of the map listing each item we’ve learned about. (I label the map dot with a number and then number our log so that we’ll know throughout the year what we’ve mapped).
It’s been fun to watch the dots fill up the map and to listen to the kids talk about what their favorite thing was to learn about. Just yesterday my 10YO read a book about the Exxon Valdez oil spill and we labeled Prince William Sound on the map. That’s his new favorite place.
I got the idea from Jen at Wildflowers and Marbles.
Just a thought of a simple way you could incorporate geography with the subjects you are already doing. Map drills, of course, are a great way to learn the names of the places, too. I “outsource” that by having my kids play on http://www.sheppardsoftware.com.
My daughter, who is 7, is just now getting the concept of maps and other countries because at a young age, their thinking is very concrete. If they can’t see it and touch it, it’s not that real. Don’t worry about it too much if your four year old doesn’t really get it right now. I’ve started getting some videos from the library about families in other countries and got some Geopuzzles. It’s a great introduction to maps for us.
At the age of 4, I do no formal lessons for my kids. My 4 year old listens in sometimes to his older siblings,but his lessons consist of coloring, dot to dots… good old “cut, color and paste” 🙂
If you want to do something, you could do coloring sheets that are maps. You could talk about the countries you are coloring, or read a picture book about the country but I would not do a formal lesson.
When it comes to formal lessons, we really enjoy the “Visits to…” series by SCM!
At the age of four, I just had a puzzle (wooden) of the United States for him to work on and we would say the names of the states.
Simplistic coloring pages as mentioned above.
The geography of your local community, because he can see/feel/touch it.
For ex: describe the topography in your local area (name the mountains, desert, county, cities around you, etc.)
Keep it simple and to encourage observation and a love of learning and curiosity for the world around him.
I don’t think formal map drills are useful at this stage.
Haha, I better clarify. Those numbers above are grade level. I am not starting my four year old on geography. He looks at me funny enough without adding concepts over his head. I am just planning in general for the years to come (with flexibility of course).
So 1. Home Geography for Primary Grades by C. C. Long is in grade 1 we will do Home geography for primary grades. grade 2 Expediation Earth, etc. I guess I am just wondering if geography covers anything more than maps, places, landforms, directions topography.
We are using The Geography Book this year. It’s filled with lots of hands-on activities. Through the book, we’ve been learning which way north is (from both inside and outside our house). We learned how to find north using the stars. It gets into map reading, map making, and even a bit of physical science.
We recently learned how to use compasses and DH made us a trail to follow in the yard. He hid poker chips in the grass, and we’d go so many paces in a particular direction to reach the next chip (the degrees and feet to the next chip were marked on each chip). We learned to read a compass and figure out how many steps we take in 30 feet (the length of our sidewalk). I was amazed at how accurate we got…we were usually within a few feet of the chip, sometimes right on top of it! I imagine CM schools did many similar activities. Now we are so reliant on GPS and struggle with basic directions! At least I do anyway. 😉
In addition to this, we also use the Visits To… series. I love that my DC are learning locations of modern countries. So many adults don’t know very many of these!
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