Name: Spreading the Feast Gathering
Start: 2025-07-11T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-07-12T23:59:59-05:00
Location: LaGrange, KY

Tagged: visit to

This topic has 27 replies, 20 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 6 months ago by missceegee.

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December 8, 2014 at 5:16 pm
cdm2kk
Participant
I am geography rich this year!!
My kids are doing http://www.amazon.com/Childs-Geography-Explore-His-Earth/dp/1932786325 and
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=longcc&book=geography&story=morerivers and
http://home.comcast.net/~rlaurio/ElementaryGeography.html plus……. map drill!!!
Here is how I am doing it and my kids are loving it all and learning so much.
1-2 Chapters from Elementary Geography on day 1 of the week depending on how big the chapters are.
1-2 chapters from Home Geography by CC Long (mainlesson) depending on chapter sizes on day 2 of the week.
1/2 chapter from Explore His Earth on day 3. — this resource you could make more interesting for your 7th grader by adding in some more reading from the links and books she suggests at the end of the chapter.
on day 4 of the week I give kids a US map and we label the state names, then once they learned them, we learned the state abbreviations, and then we learned the capitals. Now I a having them continue to label 2 states a week, but now we are adding rivers. After they learned them….we will go through again and we will discuss areas such as deserts, mountains, plains, swamps, forests, etc….then we will move on to a new country and do the same thing, but maybe not in the same depth. HTH….. each geography lesson a day is between 5 -10 minutes max. Only thing I bought was the one on Amazon.
December 8, 2014 at 10:41 pm
momto2blessings
Participant
Christie, you don’t happen to have a plan with links for a Haliburton study you’d like to share, by chance? After some patient waiting(not wanting to spend $40-80!) I just snagged a copy for $15 and am excited for my 12yo to start reading it:) Thx! Gina
December 9, 2014 at 6:40 am
greenebalts
Participant
Last year, we enjoyed A Child’s Geography of the World by Hillyer. This year, we’re eating up BF’s Geography course! Also, a friend was recently telling me how much they’re enjoying Trail Guide to Geography by Geography Matters.
Blessings,
Melissa
December 9, 2014 at 8:22 am
missceegee
Participant
For the Halliburton, I was originally compiling links for each chapter to enrich the study and made a webpage for them – http://missceegee.hubpages.com/hub/complete-book-of-marvels-geography-study
Later, I just let my oldest do the searching on her own bc I ran out of time to add to the page Our only plan was to read a chapter, narrate in some way, and then research the place similar to what you see at that link the research simply gives newer, better images and adds a different dynamic
That’s all we did
CHristie
December 10, 2014 at 7:58 pm
momto2blessings
Participant
Thanks, Christie! I definitely plan to check out your link:)
December 14, 2014 at 8:40 am
Anonymous
Inactive
Does anyone have a “favorite” for the blank printable maps that they can suggest? I purchased the Uncle Josh’s outline map book but have not used it. I want a basic, big print, more “stand out” map. Simple and to the point type of print out. This would be for map drills.
I purchased the game, “10 days in the USA”, and have yet to figure out how to play it. Any short explanations to get us started?
Thanks
December 14, 2014 at 9:21 am
missceegee
Participant
The simplest and easiest are The Visits to series offered here by SCM, in my opinion. Second to that are maps that you print from http://www.WorksheetWorks.com.
December 14, 2014 at 3:07 pm
Karen
Participant
I use The World Reference Maps & Forms published by Evan-Moor for copying maps to fill in. It was available at Staples, which tells you of it’s stand-alone-educational quality *L*, but it’s full of nice blank maps and exact copies that are filled in. It even has both physical maps and political maps. And photocopies are allowed for single-classroom use.
I own the CDs from Home School in the Woods, the History Through the Ages Record of Time and the CD of timeline figures. There are blank maps on there, but to be quite honest, they’re too fancy. Too many frills and things and my girls and I get sort of disoriented…..we need plain-Jane maps.
I just purchased one copy of Visits to North America and haven’t quite figured out how to use it in with our present studies…I may shelf it and wait for another year. In the future, I think I’ll purchase a copy of each daughter and use it as it supposed to be used.
December 15, 2014 at 10:00 pm
kellywright006
Participant
Well, I gotta ask, although I might embarrass myself in doing so, HERE GOES>….
We are doing Visits To Africa. And it’s ok, IMO. What I started skipping was the map drills. I honestly am not understanding the importance of the kids memorizing where the 42 (guessing?) countries in Africa are. There are several main ones that are often discussed in life, so sure, let’s memorize those. But WHY? memorize where little countries (some of them you can barely see) are? I can not say them. And when I try to say them to memorize them one week, I say them totally different the next day. So to me, memorizing something I can’t say, and certainly can’t spell…….I”m just not seeing the importance. I am so willing to learn for you seasoned CM mamma’s on this one, that’s why I’m embarassing myself here.
Is it just an order of priority (what to have them memorize from all the subjects?
My 4th grader has horrible spelling. I’d rather work with her on spelling words she will actually use, rather than having her spend time memorizing countries she will never again hear of. My 7th grader has so much school to do and many farm chores to do, and barely gets to have time for quiet reading. Maybe I’m just overwhelmed in general. The map drills have fallen off the wagon for us. Looking to see if I’m overlooking some importance.
Thanks everyone….. 🙂
December 16, 2014 at 6:50 am
Melanie32
Participant
I have a CD from Knowledge Quest called Blackline Maps of World History. It’s worked well for us so far. I don’t use the instructions that are included. I use the method Sonya Shafer outlined in her DVD’s.
Stephanie-I have 10 Days in the USA. My daughter and I love it! There was a short learning curve but we got the hang of it pretty quickly and have really enjoyed it. I am amazed at how much geography we’ve memorized just by playing it for fun. It seemed complicated at first but once we started playing, it was pretty simple. However, she was 12 when we started playing so I’m not sure how it would go with younger children.

December 16, 2014 at 9:02 am
Karen
Participant
I understand your point about memorizing (not memorizing) the countries of Africa and other trivia. I’m not sure what the more “seasoned” homeschool moms here will say, but my goal with geography (especially of far away countries whose names change often) is for my children to have a basic knowledge.
So, I want my girls to be able to guess (correctly) that such and such country is on the continent of Africa. To at least have a reasonable guess at where the countries of the world are.
For our country, USA, I want them to know much more – the exact placement of the states and the states’ abbreviations and the states’ capitals.
When we read aloud about wars or read books that take place in other countries, we look up those countries and have a wee-itty-bitty map study right then.
I did make my oldest daughter go through the motions with the map drills (the CM way) for Canada, just because it’s a neighboring country. I never stressed about it and never stressed her about it, just gave her the blank map each week to fill in. And I was surprised at how many provinces she can place correctly.
In the future, I’ll probably do the same for each continent’s countries: Hand over the blank map, but not stress over it.
I’m eager to hear others’ take on this!
December 18, 2014 at 8:41 pm
mrsmccardell
Participant
Should map study follow your history timeframe? It would make sense but I may be overthinking it too.
December 18, 2014 at 10:23 pm
missceegee
Participant
KellyWright said:
We are doing Visits To Africa. And it’s ok, IMO. What I started skipping was the map drills. I honestly am not understanding the importance of the kids memorizing where the 42 (guessing?) countries in Africa are. There are several main ones that are often discussed in life, so sure, let’s memorize those. But WHY? memorize where little countries (some of them you can barely see) are?
I am using Visits to the Middle East this year with 50 kids, ages 6 to 17, in our CM co-op this year. It is a rich study in my opinion. We have tweaked the lessons to fit into 24 weeks, we’ve subbed a few book choices to better work in our situation, but the kids are really enjoying it and learning so much. 3 of my 4 are doing the study and they are 7, 10, 13. They are learning the names of those countries, how to pronounce them, and how to spell them. Now, we do not worry about memorizing spelling as they always have a list in front of them. In my opinion, the stories and the cultures draw them in and they surprise themselves with the painless learning of the countries and some of the geography (rivers, mountains, etc.) of the continent. We spend about 20 minutes on geography with the kids and they grasp it. It is neat when they then read about a place in their history or current events and know just where those places are. My kids have fun trying to stump me on the spelling. It never works as spelling is my strong suit. 🙂 Those little countries are unique and interesting to learn about. Books like Material World and Hungry Planet and videos give such depth to the cultures we learn about. Map drills give context to those cultures. It is easy for kids and adults alike to learn 2-3 new places once per week. You can modify the drills as needed, too. If writing is a challenge, just let the child color the countries or label the first letter of each country.
Personal Story – There is a small country on the west coast of Africa called Senegal that looks like it’s eating another country. My husband and I have been there. We’ve met the people, ate dinner with them, shared life with them. That small country and it’s people, our friends will always have a place in my heart – Mamadou, Khadja, Samba, Abdillajai – these people who shared a month of my life helped me to see that just because a place is small and may seem inconsequential, it is a part of the world God created and He cares for the people who live there. They are interesting to Him and should therefore be interesting to us. I share this story just to show that given my school experiences with geography – which was mainly statistics like imports/exports and population, etc. I wasn’t very interested in geography or culture of any sort. Getting older gave me a somewhat improved perspective, but going to Africa by way of France changed my heart. I saw people and places more with God’s eyes and they took on a new importance to me.
Mrs.McCardell said:
Should map study follow your history timeframe? It would make sense but I may be overthinking it too.
Personally, I think that looking up the places we learn about during our history studies is an excellent part of that learning, but for map drills, to me it makes more sense to study and learn the current geography as that is the world we live in.
We’ve been doing map drills a long time, for 8 years now, so that is just my two cents.