Advice for my own geog./history study?

[Paige]

I'm putting together my own geography and history study for my kids (4,7,7, and 10). I want to have them learn about the history, geography, and culture of each country at one time, they'll create a notebook with all of their info, crafts, fact sheets, etc., and I will adjust the difficulty according to their abilities. We are all very excited. I can't decide how long to spend on each place, however. Would you do 2 weeks a country or 1 week? Quality or quantity? I have so many places I want to tell them about so if we do 2 weeks, we will miss out on over half of the places I want to do. If we just spend 1 week, on the other hand, we won't have time to go beyond the basic facts of anywhere. If you have done something similar in the past did you wish you had slowed down and spent more time on each place or did you wish that you had covered more countries? I'm leaning towards doing 2 weeks but I'm so sad about all the countries we would be cutting. I could do 2 years of it, but I was hoping to do American history next year. I have scheduled 2 days a week for this but the kids who can read will be doing extra reading about the particular area we are studying on the off days during their reading times.

[Love_to_Read]

How about each month you do one country for two weeks, and two more for a week each? Months like December, you can skip the fourth week.

[HeidiKC]

I would do two weeks for each country (or area, like the Caribbean). I think that if you just do one week, they may not retain the info as well. You can always do the countries you miss this year over the next few years, just at a much slower pace if you don't want to devote as much time to geography after this year. You could just figure you'll do one country/month for the rest of their lives! Maybe spend 30 minutes/week on it, plus watch some videos about the country (our library has great ones about kids from different countries - 20min or so), cook some ethnic meals, etc. I think this would be better for getting the info to stick and you'd all enjoy this year more as well.

 

Have you seen that mom's website where she does a Geography study by continent and you can download the pages to fill out with maps and basic info for each country, flags and animals of the country to color. She uses that book (why can't I remember anything a the moment?!) called something like "A Child Like Me" that introduces a child from each country and tells about their daily life. There are notebook pages the child then fills out about each country (I think it's about each child they read about - what toys they like, what they eat, etc.) She has a schedule posted, too.

 

Your 10yo would be too old for this, but it would be perfect for your 4yo and 7yos. But you could use different materials for the same countries for your oldest.

 

I can't think of the website off the top of my head but can look for it later if you haven't seen it yet and are interested.

[DragonFaerie]

You could always spend less time on smaller countries about which you have less information/ fewer activities and that would give you more time for other countries for which you want to do more.

[bpskowski]

I can't think of the website off the top of my head but can look for it later if you haven't seen it yet and are interested.

 

Would that be homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com? She has a two week plan for countries based on Children Like Me. I'm using some of her suggestions and printables this year for my geography. I'm going continent by continent. I was going to play it by ear and see if one week or two would be appropriate. (I was also thinking 2 for some and only 1 for others.) Plus, I will continue on into the summer weeks for extra time. And, I have to keep reminding myself, like HeidiKC mentioned they have the rest of their homeschooling career to study geography again and again.

[HeidiKC]

I

Would that be homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com? She has a two week plan for countries based on Children Like Me. I'm using some of her suggestions and printables this year for my geography. I'm going continent by continent. I was going to play it by ear and see if one week or two would be appropriate. (I was also thinking 2 for some and only 1 for others.) Plus, I will continue on into the summer weeks for extra time. And, I have to keep reminding myself, like HeidiKC mentioned they have the rest of their homeschooling career to study geography again and again.

 

Yes! That's the one.

[Paige]

I can't think of the website off the top of my head but can look for it later if you haven't seen it yet and are interested.

 

Would that be homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com? She has a two week plan for countries based on Children Like Me. I'm using some of her suggestions and printables this year for my geography. I'm going continent by continent. I was going to play it by ear and see if one week or two would be appropriate. (I was also thinking 2 for some and only 1 for others.) Plus, I will continue on into the summer weeks for extra time. And, I have to keep reminding myself, like HeidiKC mentioned they have the rest of their homeschooling career to study geography again and again.

 

Thanks! I saw that earlier but when I was looking for it all I could find was a high school course someone else had posted. I think I will pull some ideas from her site but it isn't exactly what I was going for.

 

I may spend 1 week on some and 2 weeks on others but it will be hard. I like to make things equal! I think I'll just have to jump in and see how it goes.