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Need a Geography curriculum
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My DS needs to earn 1 credit in Geography.
We are looking at Lifepac History & Geography gr.9, Heart of Dakota Geography, Bob Jones Geography, Around the World in 180 Days (no lesson plans though) or completing as many SCM Visits To…. books as we can get done in a year. If we go with SCM visits to series I would add in some extra books like some of the Christian Heroes then and Now books .
He cannot decide. We’ve printed off samples where we could but it’s hard to know sometimes.
Have any of you used any of these curriculum? Any ideas?
Lifepac was too dull for us. We used some Visits To, Operation World, puzzles of US and world, card games, and map drawing or coloring books.
I think the HOD geography program looks amazing! I would love to have my kids do it when they are old enough.
My state doesn’t require a geography credit so we prefer to integrate our geography and history studies. My favorite resource for this approach is the SCM Visits To series. My daughter and I both love them! However we use them as intended- one per year. I can’t imagine using several of them in one year. I think it wouldn’t offer enough variety.
If I had to choose one of the curricula you mentioned, I’d choose Heart of Dakota. However, I’d probably put together my own study using living books and something like Mapping the World with Art.
We are doing Geography this year with my 8th grader. Instead of buying a curriculum, I am giving him 6 weeks to study each continent. One week he will look at the history of the continent, like first people or settlers. Week 2, he’ll look up famous landmarks, etc. Each week is a different topic. We’re just researching it up on the web for the most part. He will give a powerpoint presentation to his dad when the 6 weeks are over. This is forcing him to research on his own, which he needs more work doing and it saves me money 😉
That probably makes absolutely no sense. So I’ll try to explain better. For example, he’s doing Australia first. So he looked up information on the aborigines, and the history of the first settlers last week. This week he’s looking up famous landmarks and the landforms of the continent. He will also research the animals, plants, and spend some time studying the great barrier reefs. As he finishes each little topic, he will add slides to his powerpoint, and hopefully by the end of the 6 weeks, he’ll have a nice little presentation that he can go back and peek at in the future if he needs to refresh.
6 weeks sounds really long, but we are doing 3 day weeks during the summer so we can have a day off each week during the rest of the year.
Hope that helps, I feel like he learns more when he looks stuff up for himself, instead of using a textbook.
Paula
Any other curriculum I haven’t listed that you have used?
I am sick of this! He is strongly leaning toward doing the Visits To …Series but I don’t think just them in themselves is enough! He is resisting to me adding a few books. His second choice, I think, is the Lifepacs. Which I have good reason to feel that it won’t work. He never has handled doing the workbook type. I’ve told him sometimes we just have to buckle down & do something whether we like it or not. I at least am trying to give him a say in choosing his misery. I say misery because nothing is appealing to him.
It’s too much stress to put my own thing together. I’ve spent the whole afternoon and then some just researching books and curriculum. I can’t do this. I’m 50 years old and there is just toooo much stuff I’m dealing with in my life right now. Besides this DS, I have a 12 year old daughter to homeschool. Thanks for your patience.
My son did Abeka’s world geography last year. It was relatively simple and painless. I only had him read the text and do the map work in the accompanying map workbook. He didn’t do any of the short answer questions. Unfortunately, it is only a half-credit.
BJU also has a cultural geography course and it is a full credit, but I don’t know anything about it.
Maybe just two more options to look into that you don’t have to put together yourself.
If he needs to do world geography in one year, I think it would be a LOT of work to try to do all the Visits to…. series. And that’s what you’d need.
If nothing is appealing to him and he has to have the credit, I’d just pick the one that I liked the best. 🙂
I’d relax about it and just do the Visits To series then. Figure out how many guides you can get through in a year, doing one assignment each day. Then let your son pick the guides he wants to study. You don’t have to cover everything concerning geography , just a year’s worth of study.
But first, I’d relax about the whole thing. It’s just a geography credit and with an unmotivated student, sometimes you just have to go with a get-her-done plan.
I have heard of North Star Geography. It is a full high school credit. I have not used it but heard the writer at our homeschool conference and he is very passionate about geography and the way he presented geography it in a workshop was really good!
https://www.brightideaspress.com/shop/north-star-geography/
We use Visits To… series and really like the once a week lessons a lot, but I feel like it would get really repetitive doing lessons day after day since the lessons are similar, but that might just be me 🙂 The lessons are also quick, so I am not sure if they would really add up to a full credit of highschool level work, but we are not to highschool yet (8th is my highest) and I am still learning how credits add up.
I looked up my state requirements & I found that they are not as specific now as they were in my 2009 copy.
As of 2018, minimum requirements are for Social Studies; MUST include U.S. History: 1 unit, U.S.Government : 0.5 unit, Social Studies elective: 1.5 unit.
My school district requires an ADDITIONAL 0.5 unit in U.S.Government. BUT the state nor the district asks what we are using. I do not have to report anything. I have just used it as a guide.
This is what keeps coming to mind:
If we use the Visits To…
* I have been toying with using the HOD World Religions & Cultures. It is worth 1/2 credit.
* Also considered adding in just a few missionary books since he seems very interested in missionaries. Either as part of Geography or would it work toward Bible…?
* Finding Library books on the continent being studied to browse through &/or read. Or even using a Geography textbook.(just to read portions that would pertain)
* Possibly adding books (when not reading a missionary book) like “Where Am I, the Story of Maps & Navigation” & any other books. I wouldn’t add too many, or at least try not to. A little goes a long way with him.
* I would like to incorporate current events somehow. He seemed interested
I’m not saying we’d DO all these ideas but this is what has been playing around in my mind. It’s more of a putting your own thing together though…. What do you all think?
He is considering doing the Intro to Aviation course. It looks like it could take a chunk of time from your day. So, this is partly what’s swaying the decision of what to use for Geography. If he does the Aviation course, he wants to keep his other school as light as possible. If he waits another year to do the course then it wouldn’t matter quite so much.
Thank you so much for all your thoughts!
Operation World is about missions.
I like the map ideas, especially since he is interested in aviation.
Learning country locations and basic shapes is good, whether through puzzles, drawing or coloring maps.
Melanie32 Thanks for your comments and encouragement to just relax and do what we need to do. Your responses and advice to others has often been a help to me as well. My son, 15 and going into 10th grade, voiced his feelings yesterday saying that he hates school. This has made me stop and really reconsider this child and what direction we need to take with his schooling. We have always homeschooled but we’ve tried to stay away from a ‘school at home’ approach & keeping it more relaxed. Not sure at this point what we’ll be doing but I feel we somehow need to change how we’re approaching his schooling.
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