Map skills/ geographic landforms, etc.??

If you can find an orienteering club locally, you can learn a LOT about map reading!  Where I used to live had an orienteering club that would meet weekly and would have various map&compass routes worked out at different levels.  A lot of them were “city meets” which would be following maps in various city neighbourhoods… but a lot where in provincial parks etc.  At the top levels, it is a huge competition sport… but the meets went all the way to beginners and they would have classes in map reading etc.  It was great.  Unfortunately, where I live now doesn’t seem to have a very active club.

Another resource I might suggest (assuming you are in the US, which I’m not) is picking up the Merit Badge Book for Orienteering from Boy Scouts.  I know the US has lots of good info in the Merit Badge Books.

hth a bit!

We are using the Beginning Geography books by Evan Moore (I have an older version that is 3 separate books, but now they’ve combined them). I also have Legends and Leagues (a book and workbook) that we’ll go through next. These cover basic map skills and landforms, etc. So far my son is really enjoying them. I can also tell that he has a better understanding of maps in general since we’ve done this. At first we were just doing the map drills of Africa with our history, but now he seems to understand where it fits into the bigger picture. 

Someone gave me the idea to go by continent. So we first studied Anartica, then Austrailia and now Africa. I was feeling a little stuck because there was so much info and most of the stuff I found was on ancient Egypt. Which we already covered. With Austrailia I came across a travel guide book. Put out by travel agencies at my local thrift shop. But this seemed a little more challenging. So I purchased “Around the world in 180 days on line for 3.99 you can look on Ebay at the goodwill stores. I found it was very helpful because it had Christian books for their ages. It also went over questions to ask your kids and where to find the answers. It was very helpful for the study of all the things that I needed. It filled in those grey areas I was missing. Then a friend told me to have them pick 3 states in Africa and put them on a blank map. Each lesson have them write in what they remember and add 3 more. continue this until they know them all. The book also has rivers and mountains to look up. It also tells you what type of new words to use/learn with the Geography of the continent. It also tells you what people to study (ex; Jonathon Livingston.)  My children are the same ages as yours. I think this will cover your History, geography, social studies,ecinomics. 🙂 In the end the book ends with America. That is where I will start with teaching/learning the 52 states, and presidents for the curriculm 1 a week each  for and indepth study. Hope this helped.