Dmmetler Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 DD8 went through a phase, at about age 3 or so, where she was obsessed with the US map puzzle, could name all the states from their outlines, etc. Now she's pretty good at stack the states and knowing the trivia and can sing geography songs-but when she needs to APPLY US geography, like, say, figuring out what states we're going to travel through to get from point A to point B, she has no clue. The same is true with World Geography-she just doesn't seem to be able to apply any of these trivia-type facts that she knows to the things she reads or in context. I'm pretty aware that this is my fault-I have a Visual-Spatial processing LD, and struggle to read maps, so geography was a subject I ducked in school (I took an additional history class to avoid having to take World Geography, for example), and I probably haven't stressed it much beyond giving DD a map to color now and then because I'm not comfortable with it too in depth. But even then, I can keep a visual picture of a map in my head and tell you where things are in relation to each other-I just get lost ridiculously easily. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm thinking that maybe next year we should take a break from history and just do geography. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acurtis75 Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 We have some of the same issues. My dd7 loves playing the 10 days in Africa game and we're getting the 10 Days in the U.S. version for Christmas. It has really helped her visualize the map. Also, we bought a big book of geography worksheets (I can't remember the brand and I'm not at home now) that has map exercises and it seems to be helping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 I would not do a year of geography, but instead incorporate geography into daily life. Hang maps into her room. World and US. Get her a globe. Get in the habit of looking up ANY country/city/area that comes up in conversation about daily life, history, politics, news.... immediately. We have often brought the globe to the dinner table. When traveling in and out of state, look at the map, look at the route, identify points of interest where one could stop. When hiking, look at topo maps and teach her how to recognize features. If she is a creative writer, as my kids are, encourage her to draw maps for her invented countries. I think more practice and familiarity with maps will go a long way towards thinking "in maps". My son really loved the games at sheppardsoftware.com. He memorized all countries, their locations and capitals from the geography games. There are varying difficulties, and placing countries on maps of their continent is incorporated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 I would not do a year of geography, but instead incorporate geography into daily life. Hang maps into her room. World and US. Get her a globe. Get in the habit of looking up ANY country/city/area that comes up in conversation about daily life, history, politics, news.... immediately. We have often brought the globe to the dinner table. When traveling in and out of state, look at the map, look at the route, identify points of interest where one could stop. When hiking, look at topo maps and teach her how to recognize features. If she is a creative writer, as my kids are, encourage her to draw maps for her invented countries. I think more practice and familiarity with maps will go a long way towards thinking "in maps". My son really loved the games at sheppardsoftware.com. He memorized all countries, their locations and capitals from the geography games. There are varying difficulties, and placing countries on maps of their continent is incorporated. :iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolphin Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 We are doing Mapping the world by heart. So far I really like it, and I was never good at Geography. The whole point of the program is that by learning to draw a map of the world, you hold a picture of the map in your head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beth S Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 Our kids love the Odyssey (now version 3) Talking Globe. Songs, Games, Facts. Especially if you don't have a lot of other video games competing for their attention. http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Odyssey-Interactive-Tabletop-Globe/dp/B0006IWMMU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354391776&sr=8-1&keywords=odyssey+iii+talking+globe A great Christmas gift! (I do NOT recommend the Geosafari version, not as fun.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 I think that's pretty normal. If you look at it from the lens of classical education, she's in the grammar stage so she has soaked up lots of facts, but she's not ready to apply them. In a few years, in the logic stage, she'll have moved up and if she still remembers those facts, she'll be able to apply it better. I think Regentrude ideas above are excellent. And I think taking a year to focus on geography might actually be negative. If she has inherited your visual spatial processing issue to any extent, then it would probably just be frustrating and counterproductive to focus intensively on it. Instead, I would say wait, incorporate more geography into your studies casually, and then re-evaluate whether this is actually an issue in a couple of years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlight Posted December 5, 2012 Share Posted December 5, 2012 My kids like to play the game Hop Off: http://www.amazon.com/Borderline-Games-HOPOFF/dp/B000H6XCIE/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1354736932&sr=8-14&keywords=Hop+off And we do Visualize World Geography. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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