Free shipping on USA orders over $129!
Struggling with Geography – Please help!!!
- This topic has 4 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 2 months ago by
.
Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
- Posts
We are doing Mod 1 and Letter’s to Egypt is not cutting it with my 5 and 7 yo boys. So I have read through most of the geo post on here and here are my thoughts:
-I really want my boys to understand different cultural aspects of the world but I am wondering if I should hold off on that and start from the beginning – you know rivers, climates, etc?
-I am considering just reading some of the living geo books recommended in the other post while they are younger – rather than doing a focused continent approach until the next go around of the history modules.
-I am afraid they will be missing something if I just do this or that the connections won’t be made if we don’t study geography along with our history.
So I guess I could just use some input regarding how to approach this topic.
Thanks,
Amy
Just me, but I wouldn’t worry much about it with a 5 and 7 yr. old. Do you have a wall map? I’d just show them places on it as we studied them. You could always add in some of the leisure reading books that repeat throughout the modules. We enjoyed Hungry Planet (I think that was the one)…where it showed pictures of what people around the world ate in a weeks time and shared about their lives, how they gathered food, etc. I wouldn’t stress over it:) Blessings, Gina
If you have a wall map available at any time, when you read they can get up and go track and find the location of the place(s) that you are reading about (whether they be history or literature), they will make connections. I have 2 wall aps of the world and the US and they love to find the places I’m reading about.
If you want them to label rivers and such that would be fine. I say read to them what you want, but I don’t know how much will stick, culturally, at their ages. Around age nine, the cultural connections begin to take place, but you can still instill in them with an general interest in geography and respect for other cultural traditions..
One totally unrelated geography thing we did with our children at that age, was buy them a map book of our city. (one per child). We show them the basics of how it works… and how to follow along as we drive. At first this works best if there is an adult passenger that has one too… so that adult can keep showing them where they are if they get lost on the map…. It gives them something to do during car rides, as well as teaching them how a map really works – right from the concept that this big areas is shown in small on the paper…. I think it then helps them start to understand things like country maps and world maps. (Oh, they also have provincial maps in the car for when we drive out of town…)
As a bonus to this – my son (now 8) is in Cubs (in Canada) – and was able to earn his “Guide” Badge very easily as it is finding things on a map, showing a route on a map, and giving directions. “So – where is a hospital on the map?” “Easy – it is right here!” etc.
Amy I am doing Module 1 right now with DD 7 and DS 5. We chose “Boy of the Pyramids” and my children love it! I get ideas from the book on what to go in depth with. So far we did an Anvient Egyptian style “party” with food from the region and pillows on the floor, dress ups, we built pyramids, wrapped us up with toilette paper like mummies, we were writing with hieroglyphics, went to a King Tut exhibition, visited an African Crafts Fair, listen to local childrens music on youtube and went to the zoo looking at African animals and riding a camel. On the formal side we do map drills and the children enjoy the GEO puzzle Africa/Middle East. I think at that age it is okay to keep it simple like this and have them more “experience” the different culture then learnign facts about it. But these are just my 5 cents;).
Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
- The topic ‘Struggling with Geography – Please help!!!’ is closed to new replies.