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Looking for Geography Recommendations


Junie
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Dd7 :001_wub:  geography.  She is interested in locating countries on the globe and finding out about their cultures.

 

She asks me to read the children's atlas to her.  We have a Leap Frog globe that she enjoys playing with.  We also have the Disney Small World books that she enjoys.  She also enjoyed a youtube video about how rice is grown.

 

This girl thinks about geography all the time.  When I was giving her a recent spelling test, one of her words was "burn".  She said, "Oh.  Like the capital of Switzerland."  Not quite.   :)

 

I'm looking for books or a series of books that would teach her about other places in the world.  Or games or videos. Or I don't even know what might be available.

 

Ideas, please?

 

 

 

 

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I wonder if they still make the Carmen Sandiego games....

 

you can get the Carmen Sandiego videos still. Our issue is that they won't play in our Blu-Ray player.  

 

There is a Carmen Sandiego U.S. game I think?? I have it but it is really tricky.

 

She would probably like the 10 days in the U.S.A., Europe, Asia, etc. games:  http://www.amazon.com/10-Days-The-Usa-Game/dp/B000301PG0

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1932359842/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_3?pf_rd_p=1944687642&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000301PG0&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0QNF3P8GP0QE37T1YTPF

http://www.amazon.com/10-Days-In-Europe-Game/dp/B000F3SYY6/ref=pd_sim_21_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=06JPBW5MDXNT0FSNAM2B&dpID=51o8Ja8txaL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR153%2C160_

 

For a fun quiet activity, maybe a Spot the Difference around the world book?? http://www.amazon.com/Spot---Differences-Around-Childrens-Activity/dp/048647304X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444516766&sr=1-1&keywords=spot+the+difference+around+the+world

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Legends & Leagues?  (I only have the intro level at the moment, I don't know how into other places they get in the later levels.)

 

Your local public library might have quite a few books about other countries.  They might even have enough of a selection that you could focus on one continent (or even one area of a continent) for a while.

You might want to combine it with biome studies...like these perhaps:

http://wasecabiomes.org/collections/all

 

In terms of learning geography, both online.seterra.net/en/ and sheppardsoftware.com might be helpful.

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How about Stack the States and Stack the Countries apps?  We just downloaded Countries, so I haven't gotten a chance to peruse it yet, but States has kids learn state shapes, capitols, flags, nicknames, locations...  I fully expect countries to be equally as good.  (So far I just know you work by continent and can turn off/on the different question types to avoid being overwhelmed.)  My 6.5yo geography nut LOVED States and has been begging me to get Countries for a while.

 

His other hobby is pondering a Geography Bee Handbook that I picked up on the bargain rack.  It has lots of fascinating facts about the different countries, maps to ponder, and 1001 quiz questions (which I've had to ask him 10 of nightly--we're up to 350).  He will sometimes take a break from that to browse one of our atlases, which also contain brief articles about various places and cultures.

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There is the Horrible Geography series of books. We have the Horrible Geography Awesome Atlas Jigaw Book which is well loved and the Lonely Planet Kids Amazing World Atlas. For cultures, Children Like Me and a Life Like Mine (both DK books) are my kids favourites. 

 

Where is the World is Carmen Sandiego is available at internet archive as is Where in Europe and Where in Time last time I checked. The Spy's adventure in Europe is another old game in the internet archive game database. 

 

BBC Earth Unplugged is a youtube channel which has quite a lot of geography and nature science (link has autoplay video). 

 

Along with Stack the Countries, there are lot of other map quiz games available like Seterra, Sheppards, Geoguesser, and Kbears (automusic at this link). 

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I can't believe I don't see the 10 Days In... game series mentioned, perhaps I missed it. We've played and played with these, ds and I would work on filling in a blank map after we started and really learned a lot that way. Another favorite is Geopuzzles, the puzzles are the individual countries, we bought the whole shebang when Woot had it on sell. As far as learning about cultures we are doing Children Around the World from Spirited Autumn Hope/Winter Promise, it is well done but you can do the same with some work. We found thecraftyclassroom a good source of activities for countries. As far as tv shows, Travel with Kids and Bizarre Foods are favorites of ours. We also just went through and found all the books we could from the library, including picture books.

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We loved Kathy Troxel's geography songs. Each CD has an accompanying book with the maps of each country that you can color and the lyrics; although you have permission to photocopy for your family, it's better to buy a book for each person, because everything is all nice and tidy in one place. :-)

 

I still sing the songs to myself sometimes to figure out where a country is. :001_smile:

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Thank you everybody for the recommendations.  I haven't been able to look into all of them because I've been sick in bed all weekend.  But, I wanted to let you know that I've read all of the posts and I'm excited about finding something fun and educational for my little geography girl.

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So sorry to hear you have been sick.

I pray you are well soon.

 

Thank you.  Yes, I'm feeling much better.  I have RA, so I have a compromised immune system.  I got a flu shot last week, and then caught a cold that one of my dc shared.  I was in bed for about 3 days -- mostly just exhausted -- but, I'm much better now.

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We've been really enjoying the Simply Charlotte Mason Visits to... series. You use Hungry Planet and Material World by Peter Menzel as spines. Each section has a reading from a country of the region you're learning about (we're doing Europe atm to give Dd more of a mental map for Medieval History) with pictures of a real family from that area discussing what they eat in a week with it all piled up around them. It's a way to look at Geography while imbedding culture study into it. Material World has been giving my Dd more of a perspective of the things people own in different areas of the world..the different items that are precious and valuable to them. The curriculum also has you learning the names of the countries, where they are on the map in relation to others in the region and then gives the kid a blank map to fill in with countries learned about so far. Dd has also had to trace the given map and create her own map, which has helped with retention.  It's pretty cool. It's everything I wanted geography to be but could never quite put into words. 

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