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Visits to Africa with 7 yr old
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I’m hoping someone can coach me with what to expect or require of my 7 year old when it comes to doing Visits to Africa. He’s not highly motivated to remember the countries, to write them, or practice his spelling. But if I don’t insist on him practicing these things, I’m concerned that he won’t learn anything. Since we will be doing this bible/history/geography track again in a few years, should I just relax and just let him absorb whatever he can and then trust he’ll get more next time around? I want school to be fun for him but honestly as soon as anything is required of him or is called school, he’s not much interested. It bums me out because I know it could be so fun if he cared a little!
For my daughter, who had just turned 7 when we started going through Visits to Africa, it was the same thing. She just wasn’t that interested in it. Otherwise, she’s a very eager, bright learner. Instead of insisting that she do it, we did some puzzles on Africa, watched DVDs I found at the library, and looked through books that I found at the library. I don’t push too hard because I don’t want burnout. What it came down to for me was this: Is it worth crying over? Is it worth me being frustrated and her feeling like a failure? There are some things that I do push a little more and other things that I relax on. While some may not agree with me, and I will say I’m not 100% CM, I am educating the whole child, and doing so with respect to her. Just my two cents!
Also, if your son is more hands-on and needs to engage more, I really enjoy throwing in some Montessori-inspired activities for my kids and he may also enjoy that. Here are some ideas: http://livingmontessorinow.com/montessori-monday-montessori-inspired-study-of-africa/
My DC love GeoPuzzles. They are a great way to review the countries. We often get them out before our map drills as a review.
Another thing my DC have preferred is coloring the countries instead of writing their names. For example, I’ll tell them to color Egypt orange, Sudan blue, Madagascar green, etc. They get easily frustrated trying to fit the countries names in the tiny spaces.
We did Visits to Africa this year with my 6 and 8 year old boys. They did not memorize all the countries. The became familiar with the map and can identify a couple of countries. Egypt is some place we learned a lot about and they can find it on the map easily. They know about Madagascar and can find it on the map. The older one probably find more than the younger one, but my goal wasn’t to memorize the map. I wanted them to “get to know” Africa and know that many people in Africa have far less than we do and many of the countries are Muslim and need people to tell them about Jesus.
And, I only have the kids color the countries, not write their names. We point and name the countries, but we don’t write them all.
I will start with the caveat that my 6-year-old son LOVED, loved, LOVED geography this year, much to my surprise! But we made up songs to help us remember the names of the countries. Then (when the school year was almost over!) I found this great resource that already has the songs for you:
The CD isn’t terribly expensive, but the album is free for streaming if you are an Amazon Prime member! It has songs about every continent, 4 or 5 of them being about Africa. I think it is a wonderful, wonderful way to remember the countries more specifically (which ones are in West Africa, etc.). You can sing the songs while pointing to the map.
As far as the workbook goes, if your son can read, you could copy the list of countries in the back and have him cut and paste them where they go. I think it goes far in making the connection between the name of the country and its shape.
I’m in planning mode… so excuse me for a couple of days if I jump into other posts related to my situation.
I’m looking at the sample for Visits to Africa. I can’t see my 8 and 7 year old tracing the details very well on the Make Your Own Map section. Wondering if others mind sharing their experience with this section?
I plan to buy a Geopuzzle and I’m grateful for the song suggestion above! I also appreciate MissusLeatus’ ideas about getting to know the country and just learning some countries, etc. That encourages me to relax a little. 🙂
Yes, Michelle we just finished Visits to Africa and my approach was similar to MissusLeatus. We did NOT do the Make Your Own Map! We gave the first one a try and my son wasn’t interested at all! So, we didn’t do the rest! We also do a few of the Meet the Family in writing, but the rest we did orally! We did do all the map work though, although we combined a few here and there! My goal was not to drill him or for him to even remember every country but to know some and to become familiar with the country! And he did! Every week he looked at the map and we pointed out the new countries and how they were pronounced! Then he copied them onto his map. That’s it! By the end, there are a lot of Countries in Africa. I think some weeks, having printed copies of the name of each country (cut out) and just labeling the map with those is fine! (they have this in the back) We will probably do this some this year! I never drilled him on what he remembered. As the end of this year approached, I was curious what he had retained. I took a blank map and asked him where Mali was? Tanzania? Egypt? He knew over half the countries! And he had a general idea of where the rest of them were! He was 7 when this year started and now he is 8. We will have the same approach with each Visits we do!
We didn’t trace the maps either. Honestly, I was confused by the directions! But we often drew the entire map of Africa and frequently drew the country that we were supposed to trace.
We have geography as a class in our CM co-op and use the Visits series. We use the materials with ages 6-18. They have been so very, very effective!
Some tips…
- For young ones, skip the writing of the names and let them just color the country as you say it’s name. Something like, “What color would you like to make Tanzania this week?” Alternatively, ask that they simply write the first letter of the country name. We personally don’t care about spelling for the little ones. We found cutting out the names and labeling that way to be a bit cumbersome for our setting.
- Some kids have loved the Make Your Map, others not so much. We do 1 per term and leave it at that. We also have them draw the full continent from memory sometimes.
- Other great helps – Seterra online game, Geo Puzzles, 10 Days in … games, Tap Quiz geography app for ipad; Geography songs from Audio Memory
- The books listed for the Visits series have been a huge hit, esp. the Menzel books.
We have been thrilled with the learning and retention of all of our kids, 6-18, and look forward to the coming year when we study North America.
- Food!!! Trying the food of the culture is huge!!!
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