SOTW and geography

[LAmom]

Do you do anything else for geography besides the map work in the AG? If so, what? If not, is this sufficient? Is there a long term plan for geography? What to cover when?

[Esse Quam Videri]

With SOTW maps, we include globe work, CC Geography memory work (this year 50 states and capitols), and pages from The Complete Book of Geography Grades 3-6.

 

Not sure about a long term plan though :-). However, I like the idea of devoting a year to geography/world cultures in place of history, probably in between the 4 year cycles.

[2_girls_mommy]

Starting in 3rd grade I got each of mine the Complete Book of Maps and Geography and have them work through it slowly too. My odd is in 5th now and is working in the U.S. portion. I am glad for her to have that work that she would miss with only SOTW geography.

 

Now we also just bought the Geography Coloring Book recommended in WTM, but I haven't quite figured out how to use it yet. So for logic stage I think odd will do the coloring book and finish up the Complete book while grammar stage dd sticks w/SOTW maps and the Complete book.

 

The Complete book and the coloring book get into a lot more map skills than SOTW.

[threedogfarm]

I didn't think there was enough geography in SOTW for it to be considered a geography course. I don't think that SWB intended it to be that way.

 

Here's how we incorporate more geography learning:

 

1. Bind together all the student maps into one book (one for each child). Trace the journey at the beginning of each chapter on the map or use a globe if necessary (we have a blow up globe--great visual).

2. Keep out the map book for the entire reading b/c sometimes there are more geographical references. We often pause and do them together.

3. Do mapping at end of chapter. My daughter then likes to decorate the map while my son does strategic battles (real or otherwise) on the maps. We don't do any other activities usually with SOTW.

 

We've added Trail Guide to World Geography with the Student Pages.

1. We do the 4 questions for each section in 1-2 days (both children are learning how to find the answers themselves).

2. We do the mapping exercises the next day.

 

Each day we spend no more than 10 minutes on this additional geography but they are learning a lot.

 

 

We're going through Trail Guide in half the time so we'll do Trail Guide to US Geography in the next half of the year.

[Carol in Cal.]

What SOTW is to geography is like learning vocabulary from reading difficult books. It sticks in your head better than learning either one in isolation, but it doesn't necessarily result in comprehensive, complete learning.

[edeemarie]

You could use MapTrak if you wanted and it is 50% off right now (it will show when you add it to your cart).

http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/Map-Trek-Outline-Maps.htmlThey also have these guides to tell you exactly when to use each map.

http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/Integration-Guides.html

[RootAnn]

Every other year, I have them do a Map Skills book (usually only takes one semester to finish).

 

We do other geography studies informally & work on geographical information during our memory work (states/capitals, oceans, continent names, etc.)

 

There is definitely a need to do other map/geography stuff other than just the maps in SOTW, IMO.

[ScoutTN]

So far we have done Evan-Moor's Beginning Geography (with SOTW1), read some library books and we do lots of looking up things on various maps and on our globe. We try to incorporate it into all that we study, as it comes up.

 

We have started geography as taught in The Core and it is going fine. We are working on our continent blobs, beginning with Africa.

Later this year, I may add another Evan Moor workbook, Daily Geography.

 

We have a memory work CD of geography songs, but haven't started it yet.

 

When I have two who read well, we may do a real geography course. That will be a few years.

[PeacefulChaos]

Do you do anything else for geography besides the map work in the AG? If so, what? If not, is this sufficient? Is there a long term plan for geography? What to cover when?

 

We do a separate geography program.

My kids HATED the maps. It just wasn't something that any of us wanted to do every.single.week. So I did them all in advance, laminated them, and hung them on the wall next to our world map (which I outlined the corresponding area on). Now we look at it after the lesson and that's all we do with SOTW as far as maps go.

We do Welcome to the Wonderful World of Geography (which I think I've also seen called Runkle Geography?) and I like it. It's got a lot of facts/info in it, so we're doing the book over two years. I just felt like all the ones geared toward 'younger' kids were too cartoon-ish and they just didn't appeal to us.