Geography ?

[MellowYellow]

What grade did you start geography?

 

What curriculum do you use?

 

How many days a week do you do it?

 

How many years is geography supposed to be taught?

 

Thanks!

[jenangelcat]

I'm starting geography with my daughter in the fall for 1st grade. I'm writing a curriculum using The Usborne Geography Encyclopedia as the spine.

 

I can't answer the third or fourth question. We don't have a schedule for when we do things or how often. Some times it's once a week, other times we'll go through several lessons of the same subject a day. However she feels like doing it.

[kchara]

We start basic geography in K. We use TOG, so my PreK/K'er will be following along with the big kids, and have his own map to explore. But, we'll also be working on the recommendations laid out in The Core with him. We'll begin Mapping the World with Art as they enter 4-5th grades. We'll probably cycle through that every few years, and, in between, do some sort of other world geography program to supplement our TOG.

[Violet Crown]

We've just started using Trail Guide to World Geography for dd8 (and dd15, who apparently is immune to geography :glare: ), and it's going pretty well. TGWG is designed to be used briefly once a day, then for a longer period on the fifth day.

[NicAnn]

We started this year (in November). Dd is at the pre-k level, so we've done: Identifying parts of a map, basic map reading (made a treasure map and she had to follow it using landmarks), different types of maps (museum, road, globe, etc). We've also done a little on where we live, our place in the US, the US's place in the world, etc. I plan to get into that more starting in July. She's still not old enough to grasp it fully. We live in Colorado and have done a big state unit. We will do it again next year when she's older. Geography was 2x a week for us, but now is a few times a month.

[Aquinas Academy]

For the most part, we do geography as part of history, but we've use A Child's Geography to beef things up a bit.

[Emagine]

My 5 year old did the Map SKills Grade 1 book with ease. Now both my boys are going to begin Expedition Earth in a couple of weeks. I think I am as excited as they are.

 

Otherwise for my 5 year old we also tossed in learning the Continents and Oceans and just toying around with Library books for Geo.

[mo2]

This year, we will be doing the map work in SOTW1, plus Map Skills for Today, and Trail Guide to US Geography. It sounds like a lot, but we're not doing *everything* in the Trail Guide, just bits and pieces.

[Omma]

Galloping the Globe is geared for K-4th grade. We loved using it for a combined 1st and K'er for about 6 months... doing a different continent each month. Of course, we emphasized more of an introduction to different countries than a 'how to do' map skills curriculum.

 

Brenda

[Tracy]

We did straight geography for K. I don't plan to teach geography as a separate course after that. We do mapwork with TOG, and I really like that geography is integrated with history.

[morosophe]

For the most part, we do geography as part of history, but we've use A Child's Geography to beef things up a bit.

Us too! Well, we haven't started A Child's Geography yet; I'm planning on doing it as our summer break material. I'm going to augment it by sending postcards with The Postcard Crossing Project someone else on the boards recommended. My son (finishing first grade) is already really excited about that part of it. We just have to buy the postcards! (I figure we'll do one a week--that way, hopefully the first one will have arrived by the time we run out of addresses. And also hopefully they won't all be to the same country, but even if they are, it's still fun! Particularly if we get some back.)

 

In the "Why don't people like Sonlight?" thread that was started lately, somebody said that it had very poor geography. I actually thought it was way better than we ever got in school. The maps with numbers might be very hard to work with, particularly since the number keys weren't even on the map itself, but the foldable map and wet-erase marker aspect of it worked really, really well for me. Geography makes a lot more sense to me now! And my son can at least identify Egypt, Greece, India, and Rome (or, well, Italy).

[Tranquility7]

We tend to do a good bit of geography around here since DS loves it. Ultimately we will blend it in with history, but for now we are just learning a lot about maps and landforms and political boundaries (though we do do all the mapwork that is part of SOTW).

 

We started as a preschooler with map placemats (world, US, continents). He loved looking at them and we would talk about them frequently, so by the time he was in K he had learned continents and oceans, as well as many of the states and several countries.

 

In K we started doing a couple of Map skills books (workbook style things). Since he couldn't write well yet, sometimes we just did the exercises in them orally.

 

We also have gone through the Rand McNalley Picture Atlas of the World, which I highly recommend. We did a pagespread during the week (usually about one topic is covered in a page spread), reading all of the text the first day, and then the rest of the days we just opened it back up (or used a different atlas with the same topic) and talked about some of the things again (varies a lot how much we do that, just depends on the topic).

 

I also have a bunch of blank blackline continent maps that I printed from websites and slipped inside page protectors. Each week he picks one continent and traces all of the countries with a wet-erase marker onto the sheet protector, and then labels them all (and major bodies of water and other landforms) using post-it labels I made for him (he looks at a similar map in the atlas to know where to put the labels - he doesn't know all those countries yet, but he is learning them as he does it). Once he is a better writer I will just have him write the country names rather than use the labels.

 

I also have a world map placemat and made some 11x17 pages with the major circles predrawn on them for him to draw the "continent blobs" as discussed in The Core. Ultimately I'll have him do this once a week but for now I just have him do it when he wants to (maybe 1-2x per month). I love this idea but he still seems a bit young for it at the moment.

 

We also bought a bunch of laminated unlabeled blackline maps from Geography Matters. I hung up the world, the US, and the Middle East, and one continent (which I will switch out every month). As we talk about stuff, I will have him find things and trace them on the map.

 

For the US in particular, we have just started learning state capitols. Basically I am just going to go through the states in order of statehood, have him find them on the US blank blackline map, trace the state with wet erase marker, put a dot where the capital is, write the capitol name and state abbreviation, and label any important landforms in the state (I tell him all this at first, and he just learns as we go – no pressure). I plan to do 1-2 states per week, erasing the whole map each week and retracing and labeling probably the last dozen states we’ve done, plus the new 1-2 states for that week. That way we will get lots of built in weekly review, and he will know all the info himself before too long.

 

We also tend to have a lot of maps hanging around our house. He also loves map puzzles, so we do those too! Good fun :-)