Name: CHEC Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-12T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Denver, CO

Tagged: geography, holling c. holling, south america

This topic has 10 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 3 months ago by my3boys.

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

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February 26, 2011 at 2:37 am
my3boys
Participant
We were reading Sailing Alone Around the World and just became stumped. We enjoyed looking on our globe the areas that were mentioned but just couldn’t understand the ‘sailor’ talk. We have been slowly studying South America’s countries by mapping/map drills and that is going okay, they enjoy that part of geography. I don’t want to skip South America right now, but if I end up in a completely different direction I would consider working on it in a different way or some time later on.
I would like to utilize the Holling’s books (requested by my 12yo) and just leave it at that, but I feel that I’m leaving South America out (or could just continue that for our map drills or is that overkill??). I know, as if South America really cares, huh?? I just hate to start something and not finish it:(
I own Paddle to the Sea, my 12 yo and I read Tree in the Trail together and I know our library has Pagoo, Minn of Mississippi, so I could use all of those for quite some time.
I have looked into Hillyer’s and would like that but can’t afford it right now. I looked into A Child’s Geography, but I just don’t know about that. My oldest would like to just read a ‘story’ in story form, iykwim. He has grown to love books and I’m not sure that geo resource would feel like that to him. I speak of him the most because he is my oldest and I know my other boys will tag along and enjoy whatever we do.
One more thought/question: Would you all consider these books to be too young for my 6th grader?? He has completed alot of other geography type work in the past (co-op group class/mapping, etc.) so this would not be new to him, per se. I just love these books and don’t want to miss them for him or my younger boys.
One more: Are there any read alouds specific to South America?? I checked the bookfinder but was unsure about what I had found.
Maybe I answered my own desire to use the Holling books:) TIA!
February 26, 2011 at 7:29 pm
my3boys
Participant
bump:)
February 27, 2011 at 5:31 am
Wings2fly
Participant
My children are younger. Oldest will be 7 next month. But, we have studied more in geography recently and I have invested our homeschool budget into geography resources these past few months. I did go ahead and get Hillyer’s Child’s Geography. I read the first chapter to my kids and they seemed to like how it is read – engaging. I know it can be expensive. I found mine on Amazon, I think. It was the updated 1951 in good enough shape. No dust jacket. I paid $21.88 plus $3.98. At the time I thought I might have been crazy for spending that much on an older book. But when I got it, I went through with small post-its and marked off each section with the country name. I couldn’t hardly put the book down myself. I really learned a lot in pre-reading it before reading it to my kids. I noted some places (not too many) with outdated information such as population or largest city or that maybe one day someone will go to the moon. We made “passports” out of two file folders taped together (kind of like a lapbook). We document the country we visit and draw/color the flag, date it for when we “went there” and reference it to the continent map. The kids love it and share it with others and stare at it for hours. I also got Ann Vaskamp’s 1st geography book. I haven’t used it yet. It is more about physical geography on the Earth. I don’t think she has anything yet on South America. I also checked out what My Father’s World uses for the first year on countries and cultures and got a few of those resources. So far, we really like Usborne’s The Great Animal Search, which organizes the animals by country/continent/habitat regions with a fun look and find layout. We also have Netflix and I use many travel shows to show the country and cultures. Examples are Globe Trekker, Rudy Maxa, etc. I also bought Window on the World but haven’t used it yet. The map in the middle indicates that Uruguay, Colombia, and Venezuela are featured in the book. We like Passport to the World which has a two page spread on each country. We also got Material World which is recommended on this site by Sonya. Have you ever read the Christian Heroes books by janet and Geoff Benge or Hero Tales by Dave and Neta Jackson? My Father’s World recommends those. I’m not sure if any are of South America. There are also many resource on the Amazon rainforest you can find. I hope some of that was helpful. Geopgraphy has been my hot research topic lately. There is also a free website by the author of letter of the week called country of the week. You can Internet search it. I am not sure how much CM it is. I think there are 4 countries on there now and she is adding more. We have done Norway and Antarctica. Just started Germany today. We are studying composers along with it: Bach and Handel with it in March. Studied Edvard Grieg with Norway. I don’t think I answered your question specifically. I do not know of any South America books as read-alouds in particular unless there is a Christian Heroes book. I do not know anything about Holling.
February 27, 2011 at 5:41 am
my3boys
Participant
Thanks Sarah. I will look into some of what you mentioned.
I really like geography (well, most of it) and my kids do use our maps/globes on a regular. We are reading Missioanary and the Millers right now and the boys always find the location on the globe or during history they always find the location on the maps, etc. I guess I was thinking that I wanted to go a little deeper just keeping it in a CM way. We do alot more than I think we do, but the Saililng Alone…book was just over their heads.
I will definitely check out what you shared…and now that I’m using the Organizer and feel more ‘organized’ I can add something new without it freaking me out:)
February 27, 2011 at 6:38 am
Wings2fly
Participant
Nate Saint is South America.
February 27, 2011 at 7:22 am
my3boys
Participant
Just checked it out. We have a high school in the area named after Jim Elliott (and we have seen End of the Spear) so my kids may feel a connection to that story (who couldn’t, huh?). Actually, my oldest has been talking about going to Jim Elliott when he is old enough:( We’ll see.
Thanks for your help…..this sounds promising. My kids have grown especially fond of Missionaries since we’ve been reading about them so much….and have been very curious about ‘how’ they are chosen and ‘where’ they are chosen to go:)
February 27, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Wings2fly
Participant
Yes, there were several books on South America about the missionaries. I hope it works for you. If you come across any others, please post here so I may use it, too. I have never seen End of the Spear. I’ll check into that. I had never read the Christian Hero books to my kids although I have 3 of these books. I wasn’t sure if my kids were old enough yet. I started reading a few chapters of Corrie ten Bloom last night to decide if my kids are ready for it. I had to make myself put it down so I could get to bed. I hope it is considered CM because I really did like it. She is in Holland at the time when Germans invaded for WWII. So I am thinking of reading it to the kids near the end of studying Germany to lead into studying the Netherlands. It covers history too. We are delaying the start of Module 1 until maybe next year when the kids are old enough. Until then, we are having fun learning about the different countries. We are a bit eclectic if you couldn’t tell that already. But CM seems to be the best for most subjects. It is so hard to pick which resources to use even from CM choices. We are blessed to have so many great resources available.
February 27, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Rachel White
Participant
Regarding your concern for age appropriateness of the HoOllings books, Beautiful Feet recommends their Geography trhough Lit. study course using those books as being from 3rd-6th grade; so perhaps you’d be fine this last year. If it was requested by the eldest, then I would drop what you’re doing, make a reminder to try to come back later, and use the Hollings’ books.
Other than that, perhaps something from Geography Matters might interest you?
Cantering the Country is for grades 1-6.
Other than that, there’s Around the World in 180 Days, which is multi-level.
Hands-On Geography by Bright Ideas Press, recommended gades 1-5
HTH, Rachel
February 28, 2011 at 2:07 am
livken
Participant
They might be a bit easy, but over at mainlesson.com there is a group of books by Lucy Fitch Perkins that might be interesting. Also about 4 books titled Peeps at Many Lands by Edith Browne.
Mrs. H
February 28, 2011 at 2:48 am
Sue
Participant
We found Sailing Alone Around the World to be rather tedious, especially the “sailor talk.” I asked this forum for alternatives, and someone recommended Stowaway by Karen Hesse. My kids have had an easier time of following this book (they are 12, 11, and 10), although they still prefer history to geography when it comes to living books.
We do talk about “where is Nick and the ship today?” as we go and look it up on the map (we’ve also talked about latitude and longitude), but I still feel we are somewhat lacking in the geography of South America. At least my kids all know very well where Cape Horn is, that it is close to Antarctica, and that the Atlantic Ocean is to the east of S.A. and the Pacific to the west…..I suppose that’s a good start.
Sue
February 28, 2011 at 5:54 am
my3boys
Participant
Thank you for all of your responses.
I know for sure we want to cont. with the Holling books (to satisfy the eldest), but I definitely want to do more for my youngters as well. My oldest took a class at co-op using Geography Songs and that was a wonderful class for him. That was in his 5th grade year. In addition we have done lots of mapping and always use our globe/maps, etc., but I was feeling a bit lost this semester with structure/focus for geography and want to get back to having a time set aside for a real lesson. We will cont. to identify places mentioned in our readings, but my youngest boys could use a little more (my oldest has definitely had more real geo lessons given to him). We do have puzzles and geo games but with giving up Sailing Alone…I really needed to find something else to focus our ‘lesson’ lessons on:)
Oh, I was going to mention that we do have MapTrek from Knowledge Quest but I have yet to use it except for their CD for printables. That is an option too, but I don’t think the lessons are geared for living books…I’d have to tweak it all (I believe) too much. I think it’s more like a text-book, but I could be wrong.
Thanks again everyone. You are all so helpful to me:)