Mapping the World with Art

[EmilyGF]

If you used this curriculum successfully, how did you work it into your week? How much review did you do? I really like it, but it feels like drinking from a fire hydrant!

Thanks,

Emily

[hellen]

My son has been using it for a few months. He does it three times per week. My goal is that he can draw each one from memory so he is moving at a glacial pace. I think he is on map 5 or 6. Most of the time is spent practicing prior maps. He has Egypt memorized and maybe Mesopotamia. He has to refer to the book for parts of the other maps. Each time gets better.

[Mimm]

I taught this to a small co-op class so I only had 45 minutes a week to work on it. We didn't do the history portion, we just drew the maps. I went roughly in the order they were in the book but I did cut some things out. We spent about six weeks at the end of the year drawing an entire world map. That part was probably the most rewarding part. Some of the kids liked the class and some hated it (and would have hated anything they considered to be "art") I had them each put together a book of the maps they drew. I tried to talk about each region as we drew it to give more meaning, but nothing formal. I didn't test them on anything.

[Ms.Ivy]

I just hand my kids the book and let them have at it. They draw one map a week, spending about half and hour on it. They put their maps in a binder and that's it. They enjoy it and have learned a lot.

[Gentlemommy]

We do it once per week. I lay the map pages out and they copy them while I read the history section. I do not expect them to memorize anything at all, it is simply exposure at this point. It takes us about half hour. Once a month we will do an extra thing listed in the book-cook something related to the region we are studying, play one of the games from the book, make a craft. I plan to repeat it every other year, so they will get exposure several times. My kids are in sixth, third, and kindy currently. The K kid doesn't understand a thing lol, but still draws the maps. The third grader understands the history section, and is good about drawing the maps, but in reality, I don't know how much she truly understands about where on the globe the maps actually are in relation to us. However, I think that in two years, when she's in fifth and revisiting this again, it will make so much more sense to her and she will already be familiar with the maps. My sixth grader is doing great with this program, and I think that's the ideal age to do it if you only plan on doing it once. Hope that helps.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Gentlemommy