How to do map drills?

I’m not sure of the ages of your children, but here are a few ideas:

• Get inexpensive placemats of the U. S., and during lunch, practice tracing some fun “trips” or identifying where certain friends and relatives live. For example, you might see which states you would go through if you took a trip from your house to Washington, D. C.
• Get a puzzle of the U. S. for the children to play with during the year.
• You can read this description of how we do map drill at our house. If you have young children who would find it difficult or tedious to copy the states’ names each week, you could make slips of paper with the states’ names that they could just slide into place on the map.

Just a clarification…

• The Knowledge Quest Map Trek Maps (or the Homeschool in the Woods historical maps) are historical in nature and useful for helping to understand what we’re studying in history. The expansion of the Roman Empire, Battle Locations, etc.

• The Uncle Josh’s Blank Outline Maps are for drilling and learning the current political locations of countries.

Globes, puzzles, games are all great additions, too.

Christie

For young kids learning the states, I recommend The Scrambled United States. I know it looks like twaddle (I thought so at first and ignored it when we received it….and while I ignored it my kids learned the states with it!). In a very rare occurance, I think the DVD is better than the book.

Simply posting a map in your home where it gets lots of attention will work wonders.

Now that my kids are older (not beginners), when we study a place, we draw our own maps and label them as we learn facts and stories about the place. This is been so much fun, and you really learn a lot when drawing – it’s impossible to draw a map without REALLY looking at it and noticing details. I do this project with the kids….and it can be frustrating, so be patient if first maps turn out looking like blobs. Skills will improve.

We are doing US history this year too.  We are doing geography (learning states) like listed above by quietwaters.  We have added the The Scrambled United States GAME to our weekly to do list.  The whole family (children 19 yrs, 9, and 5) all love it including us, as parents.  You can get it at your local Barnes and Noble with your teacher discount for about $12.  It’s our favorite game to play right now.

Wow! That map site is fantastic. It will come in very handy. Thanks for telling us about it, thehauserfamily!

I wish I had the mega maps for Africa last year.  I was trying to have my children put small pieces of paper on a map because they were too young to print every word.  If the map was able to print and then put together as a large map that would have been easier.

Thanks for the site hauserfamily.

Kim.