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How do you fit in geography (junior high years)?


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DD11 *really* needs geography next year. Now, I'm mandated to teach world history, not geography, but she sincerely has no concept of geography. I was looking at Mapping the World With Art (because we love Ellen Mchenry), but I just can't see where I would fit it in with her schedule next year UNLESS I got rid of history.

She isn't the type to be interested in geography and she will need actual work - not just mention as we go in history.

Agh.

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Have you looked at Trail Guide to World Geography? It has daily questions to research as well as weekly suggestions for art, map work, extra topics to study, directions for a geography notebook, and even includes a literature unit. You could easily do the questions and map work in one day each week.

 

We're using this this year on conjunction with Globe Trekker DVDs (library). We watch the DVDs associated with the week, one a day. One day dd answers the 8 "daily" questions for the week. Another day she does the map work.

 

Dd has no patience for the other activities suggested in Trail Guide---the artsy/crafty stuff, the food, keeping a geography notebook of terms etc.

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We're just starting McHenry's Mapping and are realy enjoying it. I don't think it has to be an either/or. You can easily and quickly include geography into your history lesson. I know it would have helped me immensely in my history studies to have a good geography background. It also helps tremendously with understanding our world. Or you could use two separate programs and devote one hour/week to geography. You can cover a lot of geography in 36 hours.

 

 

Laura

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We're just starting McHenry's Mapping and are realy enjoying it. I don't think it has to be an either/or. You can easily and quickly include geography into your history lesson. I know it would have helped me immensely in my history studies to have a good geography background. It also helps tremendously with understanding our world. Or you could use two separate programs and devote one hour/week to geography. You can cover a lot of geography in 36 hours.

 

 

Laura

 

Once a week may be a good fit. We could do history 4x's a week (mon-thurs) and Mapping on Fridays.

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I got a workbook Discovering the World of Geography. At the beginning of this week, my 6th grader knew one Canadian province and no capitals. I had her do a couple of the workbook pages and then I downloaded some iPad apps and required her to use them for 10 minutes every day. Well, "required" is how it started but she really likes a couple of them and spends a lot more than 10 minutes. Now she knows all the Canadian provinces, where they are located, and their capitals.

 

The workbook covers quite a lot of topics, not just countries/states/provinces/capitals. Too bad I haven't found iPad apps to correspond to all of the topics.

 

The apps that my dd likes are Edge Mates -- North America (this one is like a logic puzzle which is part of the appeal) and TapQuiz Maps World Edition.

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Agreeing that the McHenry course isn't that terribly time-consuming. The 4 days history and 1 day geography would probably work well. My dd did it last year in 7th grade, and it really didn't take that long. She found it a lot more engaging than Runkle (which is what my boys have used for middle school geography -- though I documented it on oldest's high school transcript).

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I got a workbook Discovering the World of Geography. At the beginning of this week, my 6th grader knew one Canadian province and no capitals. I had her do a couple of the workbook pages and then I downloaded some iPad apps and required her to use them for 10 minutes every day. Well, "required" is how it started but she really likes a couple of them and spends a lot more than 10 minutes. Now she knows all the Canadian provinces, where they are located, and their capitals.

 

The workbook covers quite a lot of topics, not just countries/states/provinces/capitals. Too bad I haven't found iPad apps to correspond to all of the topics.

 

The apps that my dd likes are Edge Mates -- North America (this one is like a logic puzzle which is part of the appeal) and TapQuiz Maps World Edition.

 

Thanks for the review! I was just looking at this today.

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You can also use the Sheppard's free online games. Sometimes, I give my kids something like an educational game to do at the end of their school day, and they run with it for an hour or so. My dd saves her McHenry program for night time. She just finished Italy in about 20 minutes and said, "that's where Venice is."

 

Laura

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We're using McHenry's Mapping this year with my 6th & 7th graders and loving it. We usually do it once a week and it doesn't take up much time at all. It's really interesting and easy to do.

 

That's very comforting. It looks like a lot of fun. Glad to know we should be able to fit it in!

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Dd did Mapping the World with Art in 6th grade. She was geography clueless after being in ps k-4. We did it in addition to SL World History and it wasn't at all overwhelming. It is very flexible on how many activities you choose for each unit, so you can make it take as much or as little time as you want. It is a great introduction!

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