How important is a separate geography program?

[ProudGrandma]

I never recall having "geography" in school when I was a kid...but there is something that is nagging me to think I might have missed out on some important things because I don't know much about the geography of the world. 

 

I have  rising 5th, 7th and 8th graders next year.  The only geography I have done with the kids is the Evan Moor Daily Geography which to me is more maps than actual geography.

 

So, my question is:  how important is it?  AND, if it is important, what are some of your favorite programs for the ages of my kids? 

 

thanks.

[FloridaLisa]

I think it's really important.  I tried to incorporate it into our routine history cycle -- and I do think that daily drip can be good -- but I found a year off of the history cycle completely devoted to world geography was the shot in the arm that we needed. Your kids are the perfect age for a year of world geography.  In fact, those are the exact ages my olders were when we did our first geography study.

 

My olders were super geography focused. We started a local geography bee for homeschoolers and one of mine went on to state one year.  So we have a small shelf of geography resources. 

 

Here is a post I wrote last week on what our geography year looked like and the resources we used.  Feel free to ask any other questions. I'm really looking forward to doing it again with my youngers. 

 

 

Yes!  I've taken a year off from our history cycling twice now and I loved it both times!

 

First, it was absolutely invigorating to me as a teacher to stir the creative/academic juices and do something other than history for a year.  Also, we use Veritas Press which follows a five-year cycle so when the oldest finished the cycle in 6th, we took his 7th grade to cover world geography.  I did that again with two of my boys when they were in 6th and 8th grade.  I really appreciated having the time to study cultural, physical and political geography and I think it laid a solid foundation for high school studies.

 

I'm not crazy about geography offerings but what works for us is:

 

1. Mapping the World by Heart (expensive for what you get; it's a great concept, but a shell of a curriculum that needs a lot of fleshing out.  If you can find it inexpenive and used, recommended.)

 

2. Runkle Geography, both the text and student book.  The text is really physical geography.  The student text covers political geography and could be used separately from the hardback text.  It has great mnemonics to remember the countries.  

 

I added in different books and worksheets and fun activities that we found.  One resource we really like is Window on the World, from a Christian worldview and highlights different countries or people groups.  Gorgeous pictures and great for the 6th and under crowd. 

 

I'll definitely (Lord, willing) take a year exclusively for World Geography when my youngest two reach the middle years. Looking forward to it!

 

[Arcadia]

Earth science covers physical geography, social studies cover human geography in school. For K-5, school covers geography under history.

[jar7709]

I find it really important, but also one of the topics that is frequently overlooked in a "standard" education. I recommend Teaching Geography as a good resource for "why" and for explaining our preferred approach-- and it also has a whole bunch of sample activities and materials that help see what he's explaining and that are easy to tweak for homeschool use. My kids are a little younger than yours, but this book is one of those that teaches the teacher, and as such can be applicable to many ages. So far I haven't needed a separate program, we've been doing well with reading a lot of good books and wrapping in geography topics with our other studies.

[Crimson Wife]

I had a whole year of World Geography in high school. DH had a year of it in jr. high. So when I started looking at the course sequence for the various private high schools (both online and B&M) that we might use for oldest DD, I was suprised to see that most don't include geography except perhaps as an elective. So I decided to take a year off from the history cycle to devote to world geography. Oldest DD was in 5th and DS was in 1st.

 

She used Glencoe World Geography with the Oak Meadow syllabus adapted to be an "honors" middle school course rather than a high school one. I didn't feel that Glencoe went into enough detail on U.S. and European geography, so I supplemented with Memoria Press. DS used used Carson-Dellosa "A Trip Around the World" series plus library books.

[ProudGrandma]

thank you for all of these options....how many times a week do you all do geography?  espeically if you aren't replacing history...which I don't think I will do...

[Wildiris]

I am beginning to think a separate geography course a good choice. I spent some time looking for texts that would work for us.

 

What I found: 

 

http://www.nexuslearning.net/books/ML-WCG-East/  This is an online version of a text.

 

http://wwcsd.net/~lahaines/documents/Unit%205.pdf  This is an interesting option- a JROTC text.

[Dory]

The sheer number of people that I've met who seem to think that Canada is about the size of Texas is scary (or that we live in perpetual winter or in an igloo, or that we all use dog sleds and play hockey). I don't want my kids to have similar ideas about other places on the Globe. Geography gets covered separately and thoroughly around here.

[Tess in the Burbs]

We have always done some geography.  They liked the Evan Moore series but it was more maps and understand how to use them.  Important but now I want more.  They were not impressed with Runkle so waiting another year before starting it.  But I found a workbook they both liked that goes through the physical features of each continent.  It's a great starting point this year in recognizing these features and I plan on pulling in some other map resources to expand on some of the topics.  

[Momof3littles]

We've struggled with fitting it in other than casual conversation (work travel, vacation, people we know), or SOTW mapwork.  We did add some to SOTW this year, like making clay maps of different countries, studying some maps and drawing from memory, etc. but we haven't done as much formal geography as I would like it.  This year we're going to do some as part of their individual memory work, and hopefully a morning time.

[boscopup]

We've not done any outside of what we do during history studies (which includes map work and reading about various countries and cultures as we come to them).

 

Dory, you'll be happy to know that my kids have Canadian cousins who play soccer. We, however, are a hockey family down here in Alabama. :D

 

(And now I have that song in my head, "Do you play hockey?")

[AimeeM]

We're doing American history this year, and I plan to buy the MP states and capitals to go with it.

The year after we'll do modern world history, and I plan to either rotate (twice weekly) with Runkle's or MP's geography.

[MinivanMom]

I had geography in 4th and 5th grade, and then we were required to take a semester long geography class in high school.

 

In our homeschool, we study geography in grades 1st-4th by doing mapwork along with our history studies, and then do a full geography course (separate from history) in 5th grade. We are also the kind of geeks who keep our atlas by the kitchen table so the kids can look up locations as we read the morning paper. I'm not sure what formal studies we'll do beyond 5th, but geographical literacy is very important to me.

[FloridaLisa]

thank you for all of these options....how many times a week do you all do geography?  espeically if you aren't replacing history...which I don't think I will do...

 

For us, it would be difficult to fit in both history and a solid geography study. Have you thought about block scheduling with one semester of history and another of geography?  If so, I'd spend about 3/days a week on geography.  

 

Lisa

[JubilantNest]

if you don't want to toss history, you could pick up the Classical Conversations Geography Trivium Tables.  (I got mine used for $2.)  Every week of the school year has locations to study right next to the map and it is nicely laminated.  Our daughter alternates between the map, a globe, an atlas, or a puzzle on a daily basis and just picks one of that week's locations for further investigation (encyclopedia, The ... Twins book, etc.)  It takes around 15 minutes a day.

[My3girls]

We're going to finish our history cycle with a year of geography. I was planning on doing it next year alongside history, but I think this way will work better. Until then, we incorporate as much as we can with history and science. As of now, I am planning to use Trail Guides Geography package. We have a couple of years so I may change my mind by then, though. Lol

[Chris in VA]

Don't forget you can cover basic knowledge of country names, capital cities, states/capitals, oceans, mt ranges/rivers/other BOW with online games like Seterra.

[dauphin]

Stack the States app!!!!

[Saddlemomma]

Stack the States app!!!!

 

My DD learned more and faster from this game than she did in other geography programs, except for TOG geography.

 

We've done geography as a separate class with TOG last year and plan to continue that way.  However, we'll finish our first rotation of TOG in 7th grade.  For 8th grade, I plan to do a comprehensive geography course using Harmony Fine Art's plan.

http://harmonyfinearts.org/2011/03/world-geography-for-high-school-harmony-art-moms-plans-to-download/

 

It's a free plan you can download.  As with everything I'll probably tweak it, but it looks pretty good.