Galloping the Globe for younger kids?

[Heatherwith4]

I bought GTG for ds5's K year. I thought we'd use it as a gentle introduction to geography, before we begin SOTW in Grade 1. But, I haven't started on it yet. It's just overwhelming. :)

Has anyone used this successfully with younger dc? I have a 3 year old ds who will want to listen in, too. Any tips for making it very gentle and as fun as possible?

TIA!

[Mom0012]

I used it for my son when he was in K and my daughter was either 3 or 4. She was a little young to get a lot out of it, but she did enjoy it. We did a neat hands-on activitiy for each country we studied and we watched a video series called A Family From ______ that was really neat. I think there is also a Big Bird in China dvd that was really fun.

 

For the North Pole, we built sugar cube igloos and watched March of the Penguins, for Japan, we sat at a low coffee table and ate with chopsticks and wore our robes and had a stir fry meal. For Holland, I printed out a windmill from Canon paper projects and we ate Chocolate on bread. For Mexico, we build our own volcanoes, painted them and then erupted them. For Australia, we make coral reef diaramas. There is also a Micky Mouse series of books that are just wonderful (and I am not a big fan of Mickey), but they introduce all kinds of important landmarks and traditions from each country in a very fun way. I believe they are OOP, but your library may have them or you can buy them fairly inexpensively like I did. If you are interested, let me know and I will get you the exact titles.

 

I also used a series of books called "Look What Came From _____________".

 

We used almost all of the literature suggestions from GTG, but I did not find the resources that were sold at the time all that engaging other than Children Around the World. I don't know if the new ones are better, but I wound up ditching most of the resource books that were available when we did it. The actual manual was great for literature suggestions to go with each country, though. I hit the library every week to get all the literature books I could get for whatever country we were studying.

 

My son was highly, highly interested in learning about different countries. I had him use http://www.sheppardsoftware.com to learn where all the countries were located and by the end of GTG, he could tell you where any country in the world was.

 

We had so much fun with this. My son even made a book using Valerie Bendt's Creating Books with Children. I look back on the time we did GTG as one of the best we ever had homeschooling. And, let me say, I am not a hands-on teacher. We now use SL, which we love and enjoy, but that year with GTG was really something special for us.

 

Lisa

Edited November 11, 2010 by LisaTheresa

[krismoose]

I agree with the PP that if your oldest is 5, most of the resources will be a bit much. We looked at GTG for this year, but I didn't want to pull so much together myself, so I went with MFW ECC because a friend had it to share, and I've omitted a great deal of it. That being said, here are some resources we're enjoying, not every one for each unit:

 

Children Just Like Me

DVDs A Family from ___

Around the World Art for 3-7yo

One simple library book for each country, such as "Spotlight on ___"

One simple library book about the animal or environment being talked about

A storybook about something from the country

Missionary Stories with the Millers

I Heard Good News Today (a Sonlight rec with many short missionary tales)

Bold Believers activity books downloadable from Kids of Courage website, part of Voice of the Martyrs. I've used recipes and short stories, most of the activities are for older kids.

Beginning Geography for K-2 (Evan-Moor pub) for beginning map skills etc. CurrClick has a downloadable version which is great because we're not doing all of it, or in order, and the 3yo wants to do it too :D I really like this, but you'll have plenty of country pages in GTG.

Recipes from internet, the simpler the better.

 

We're having fun, especially since I reduced my expectations for how much is "enough" :lol:

[Guest]

I'm using it this year with a 5 and 3 year old. I think my 3 year old is enjoying it more than my 5 year old! (Everytime she sees the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall of China in a book or movie she gets so excited!) We aren't doing that much with it. We color the flag and put it on a wall map. I usually read a story during the flag coloring. (I've resorted to a fiction/literature story as opposed to the non-fiction stories I started the year with.)

 

My goals for the year:

 

Know names and locations of continents on a map

Know names and locations of oceans

Recognize and locate (know the country of) some major world landmarks

Know the name and continent and general location of large world countries

 

If we accomplish that and have a notebook of colored flags at the end of the year, I'll be happy. :)

[coffeefreak]

I'm using it this year with a 5 and 3 year old. I think my 3 year old is enjoying it more than my 5 year old! (Everytime she sees the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall of China in a book or movie she gets so excited!) We aren't doing that much with it. We color the flag and put it on a wall map. I usually read a story during the flag coloring. (I've resorted to a fiction/literature story as opposed to the non-fiction stories I started the year with.)

 

My goals for the year:

 

Know names and locations of continents on a map

Know names and locations of oceans

Recognize and locate (know the country of) some major world landmarks

Know the name and continent and general location of large world countries

 

If we accomplish that and have a notebook of colored flags at the end of the year, I'll be happy. :)

 

:iagree:

 

We did it for K/1st grade. It's very similar to FIAR, but organized by county. With the age your kids are, I would suggest do FIAR for a year, and then do GTG next year when your oldest is in 1st. You'll get more out of it, and you won't be as overwhelmed with all your little ones :)

 

Blessings!

Dorinda

[mytwomonkeys]

we used GTG gently when my little girl was in kindergarten. i blogged about our unit in china here: http://www.mytwomonkeys.webs.com/homeschoolblog.htm?archived=1&page=10 this post is old, so i'm not sure if the links are current. we also notebooked while using GTG. here's a sample: http://s186.photobucket.com/albums/x23/elizawill/?action=view&current=88e8727c.pbw

 

basically, each country we visited looked about like this. some crafts, cooking, and notebooking.

 

a pp mentioned "children just like me", and i totally second that recommendation. it's awesome!

 

hth.

Edited November 12, 2010 by mytwomonkeys