Looking for fun ideas to teach physical geography in a co-op for 4-5th graders

[DebonLI]

I started out drawing maps and labeling physical features. I'd like to do a biome along with this and draw some of the animals. There's too much time left over though. It's only an hour and these kids are fast!

 

Any good, fun ideas?

 

Thanks,

Debbie

[cougarmom4]

I actually typed out a response earlier today, but the server was busy so it didn't come through!

 

I taught an after-school class at my kids' school last year to prepare the kids for the National Geography Geography Bee. We took a different continent/region of USA for each week and did a variety of things:

--We always had a snack that was from that area or a country (usually very simple, like chips & salsa...)

--Labeled maps, colored countries, labeled cities, rivers

--Talked about landforms, important geographic features (showed pictures, found location on map, wrote down geography definitions)

--Another Mom brought a CD she had, Geography Songs, and the kids could learn the countries within that continent by the song

--We divided into small groups and rotated in little activities: geography puzzles, Professor Noggin games, the Scrambled States game, the National Geographic board game, a fun game that was a huge map & was played like Twister, etc. You could also print off assignments from the internet on geography or crossword puzzles on geography terms.

--I also tried to do some physical activity--like jumping jacks as we named the capitals of states; or a bean bag toss onto a large map & name that country; etc.

 

I really like having the kids break up in small groups & rotate--it seems to fill the time and keep them all busy more than large group discussion.

 

You might want to look at the Geography Bee website for some more ideas. I think there was a teacher section that I perused to get an idea of what I wanted to teach. If you have computer access during the class, or even just to suggest to the kids to work on at home, check out http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games.htm.

 

Good luck! I hope someone else pipes in with some more suggestions for you!

[Guest]

Cougar mom had great ideas. If you would like to go beyond physical geography and give them an idea of what kinds of people live in different parts of the world and how they live:

 

You could add in activities from Klutz Geosearch, now out of print but still floating around on the internet used. We also did a lot with the picture book If the World Were a Village. With a group of kids you can use the kids themselves to demonstrate how many would be from each part of the world, speak a particular language, etc. Or you can bring in action figures or Lego people and do the same thing.

 

Material World and Hungry World both are wonderful for graphic visual presentations of wealth and poverty, for discussions of why in some countries so many people live together under one roof, etc. People may be sensitive about this, but you could have kids take a picture of themselves with the contents of their room, or in their kitchen with typical food for a day, and relate that to others around the world.