Need help planning a coop class!

[Jerico]

If I don't die of stress before the class begins, I will be teaching a geography/cultures class to 14 6-8 year olds. I never wanted to be a teacher... For a reason. And I feel like I have to follow through and then I can quit coop for good. But I digress.

 

I am trying to make the class over the holiday break so it can be more hands off once we get back into school. I can't handle a lot of teacher intensive things.

 

I'd like to cover some of the 5 themes of geography, maps, etc. Then dive into country study. Our library is... Lacking. IMO. I'd like to find some stories (informational, folk, whatever) perhaps on librivox????

 

Any ideas? Or other suggestions?

[aaplank]

This one seems to be a popular one for co ops

http://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?id=026489&subject=History%2FGeography/14&category=Galloping+the+Globe/4615

[SoCal_Bear]

yup...that one! Galloping the Globe.

 

 

[EndOfOrdinary]

You could definitely do something like Mapping the World with Art. You know, like blobs that start to take shape over the term. You could even keep the first and the last to show growth.

[debi21]

I did a co-op class like this about two years ago with similar ages and didn't strictly use a curriculum. Pinterest for a lot of ideas. The more hands-on the activities the better, it seemed to me. I will list what I remember in case you're interested. We did songs for the continents and labeled maps with continents and oceans. We made a compass rose and I played "Stand" by REM and did a little game to jump to face different directions. We did some blobbing, which I thought was great. We did big geography jigsaw puzzles. We played that game - Scrambled States of America, I think. I made homemade playdough in blue, green, sand, dirt colors and we did landforms, etc. Kids really loved this and I think it could have been extended over multiple classes. We did a similar activity with graham crackers and blue frosting - there are like Montessori landscape cards you can search on the internet you can do with these. There is also an overlapping bits of colored construction paper activity that shows different physical geographical features. We did the "me on the map" activity. We drew pictures of habitats. We played a game with latitude and longitude lines - like a find the treasure coordinate kind of thing. We also did a find your way through the maze kind of thing where you use directions. I had a big map of the world on the wall and tried to give the kids some time to just look at it; had them try to find countries, had a kid choose a country and have the other kids guess what it was... I tried a couple of workbook pages - complete bust. I tried reading a couple of 'living' geography books to the group - a bust with my group of K-2nd gradish homeschooled (mostly) boys. We didn't really get into individual countries. We had 13 1 hour sessions.

[TCB]

Not a world geography class - but I just did a co-op geography class for that age group using the book "Paddle to the Sea" along with a sort of unit study curriculum I bought on-line for about $4 which had a map to use and some other ideas. I also had the kids carve a canoe out of soap. They seemed to really enjoy it - especially the soap carving!