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Secular World Geography for 6 and 8yo's?


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I have sons in 2nd and 4th grades and we are working through Trail Guide to World Geography. My 2nd grader is a little younger than the recommended age, but he's enjoying it. I could see us cycling back through it next year -- it has questions and activities aimed at different age groups, so we could pick up a lot of things we didn't do this year. I know there is a younger version (Galloping the Globe), but I wanted something that would hold my older son's attention.

Lee

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We are loosely using Expedition Earth which does have a Christian component to it, but it is easily left out. In fact, I am leaving it out. I am using it with Kindergarten and 3rd grade and we're having a wonderful time!

 

I am posting my lesson plans on my blog. Our first week is here.

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We are loosely using Expedition Earth which does have a Christian component to it, but it is easily left out. In fact, I am leaving it out.

 

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I agree, it is really easy to leave out the Bible portion. Leave out the book Window on the World, and ignore when she lists to pray for the country. That's probably it, although there may be a missionary story listed here or there that you would also leave out. Really easy.

 

FWIW, we don't follow her lesson plans but use it more as a checklist and spend longer on each country.

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MP is Memoria Press.

 

www.memoriapress.com

 

They are a Christian based company, but many of their products can be used in a secular manner. I was looking at the geography next year myself from them!!

 

There's also Spectrum Geography, and a series called Discovering the World of Geography:

 

http://www.christianbook.com/discovering-the-world-geography-grades-to/myrl-shireman/9781580372275/pd/72272?event=CF

 

The link is to CBD, but it's a secular series. :)

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Earlier this week, my kids gave me the perfect idea for our next study of geography. We are going to the Grand Canyon in a couple of months and they have been eagerly looking through every book we can get our hands on, dreaming of what they'll do and see, making lists of what they want to do, bickering over which hotel or campground they think we should stay at. :lol: They are LOVING the travel guides! I had a little lightbulb moment about this, as someone who has never found a cultural geography curriculum or guide that I like. I want it to be engaging and memorable.

 

It occurred to me that we can do world geography through travel guides. They are readily available at the library, for almost every destination imaginable. They are a sadly untapped resource for this sort of thing, chock full of info about cultural events, local culture, demographics, religion, etc. and web links for museums, hotels, restaurants, national parks, art galleries, music venues, festivals, etc. As soon as the thought hit me, I wondered why I had never thought of this before!

 

So, we will do a virtual world tour, checking out travel guides, videos, books, etc. for our chosen destinations. We will visit web sites for monuments, museums, national parks, etc. I will have the kids plan our trip, hitting every continent and all major countries. I will let them decide if they want to each take responsibility for individual locations or split responsibility for each location.

 

The possibilities are endless! You can cover logistics (order of the trip, what to pack, pricing/picking hotels and restaurants, devising daily touring itineraries, etc.), climate (deciding the best season to visit each country, taking into account climate, weather, holidays, festivals, etc.), sightseeing (landmarks, museums, art, dancing, food, zoos, big cities, small towns, local parks, national parks, nature preserves, local wildlife, etc.), language (using SayHi app to "get around" in different countries)...

 

For every place we visit, we can make a meal from that country and listen to local music through Pandora. I'm even thinking I can teach the kids to Photoshop ourselves into pics of famous places. :tongue_smilie:

 

I have a slightly older kid, so I've thought about some more challenging add-ons I can give him. I can have him read up on requirements for travel in particular countries (immunization, water quality, physical safety, gender equality issues, etc.), planning for transportation and lodging, calculating routes, keeping the budget and figuring exchange rates, reading about current events in each location, etc. I have also thought about throwing them some obstacles and luck along the way, causing them to adjust. (ex. Your mosquito net has a hole; you have contracted malaria and will experience third world medicine.)

 

While in each country, we can read a bit of history, legends/myths, fiction, info about current famous people/news, etc. For writing, there will be lists, itineraries, travel journals, and postcards/letters. I have also had the on/off thought of having them just pretend to run a travel agency that sells these packages/plans they will produce. We'll see... I'm trying to come up with a scaffold so I can step back and let them run with their plans within my framework.

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We used Geography songs and Galloping the globe at that age. Galloping the globe uses Christian resources but there is no reason you can't use others. I wasn't able to find many of the books so we did it with a combination of Zoobooks (the animal studies),an Evans Moor geography guide, Draw Write Now, and library books. We did use the Considering Gods Creation science part which had incredible paper creations which you might be able to do minus the script.

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Alte Veste Academy - I love your ideas, they sound great! Thanks for sharing all that. :)

 

I have two older dc who are rising 6th and 8th graders that I decided to use the OM syllabus with the Glencoe Text as a spine and add in some other books and your ideas. I think I'm just going to end up using that as my guide for my rising 1st and 3rd graders. They won't read the text or anything I'll just use it to keep them on the same topics with other resources. I might purchase Expedition Earth for the projects. I think they will love it, I knew I was going to end up having to put it together myself mind as well just accept it. ;)

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I like Alte Veste's ideas too ~ I might incorporate those into our plans! What I had been planning was to use some of the activities from Homeschool Creations, the free animal cards from Expedition Earth and the arts & crafts from these Scholastic books (I got them for $1 during the sale). We will also be adding books from tracymirko's list and others found on this thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/440432-literature-world-geography/page__hl__geography%20literature#entry4494223 . I'm really excited about starting world geography next year!

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we are using Highlight's Top Secret Adventure - you get a new country kit every 4-6 weeks, with a guidbook and a puzzle book and a mystery to solve. There is a wall map to go with it. My son really loves it - he doesnt like curriculum much, but he likes the puzzles and many of the puzzles require you to find information in the book. Three days a week we read 2 2-page spreads in the guidebook and do a few puzzles. We've completed 2, but fell a bit behind over the holidays, so the second one arrived about a week before we were ready for it. it looks like at least 2 years worth of countries!

 

they also have a states version - 2 states per month - which i guess also makes for about 2 years

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