KarenNC Posted August 16, 2010 Share Posted August 16, 2010 I'm trying to decide on the most useful approach to geography with my 5th grader. We've done one full rotation through SOTW now, including mapwork. I am planning to start history again with the ancients, using k12's History Odyssey as a spine and supplementing with Knowledge Quest's ancient history map set. HO has introductory material on overall geography as well. In addition to this, I'd like to give her some additional exposure to modern geography so that she has some frame of reference for current events. I have the choice of two resources (both of which I own): 1) Challenging World Geography by Teacher Created Resources. For 5th-8th grade, workbook, covers political boundaries, climate, religion, products, vegetation, animals, population, cities, physical geography, languages. I would pair this with videos about the various areas from Netflix or the library. Each continent would get roughly 5-6 weeks of focus. No focus on specific countries. Definitely an overview, but more detailed than we've done so far. 2) Prentice Hall's World Explorer: Latin America and Europe/Russia. Middle school text, goes into more depth on these two continents (there are other books in the series, but these are the ones I have). It's a combo book in 3 parts---how geography works, Latin America and Europe/Russia. I have teacher editions to go with the LA and E/R sections. It has companion books covering guided reading, unit assessments, etc. This covers cultures and physical geography, including sections on the history of the region. It does an overview of the continent, then focuses on a few specific countries in more depth. I would also pair this with relevant videos. I would spend probably a month or two on the beginning geography section, then each continent would get 3-4 months worth of focus. I picked this up very cheaply and would be looking to find the other volumes over time. I am trying to decide if I start with the survey this year (using CWG) then do the more in-depth studies of the continents two a year during middle school (Antarctica shouldn't take long and can be combined in) or if I should ditch CWG and stick with the World Explorer starting now. Any suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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