DIY World Geography Curriculum - Help!

[scbusf]

So I had this vision of doing a World Geography year .... or maybe longer than a year. My kids are 8, 10, and 12 years old. I thought about doing it myself, but then I got nervous. I am classic Inattentive ADHD - I do great at starting projects, but not so great at finishing them. So I bought Bookshark Eastern Hemisphere and figured I could use it to get myself started. After reading through it, I think we will hate it.

I have a TON of world geography resources, but I'm so nervous about doing this myself. I need a good framework and then we can find the resources ourselves.

I have a list of things to learn about each country we study - government, religion, geography (rivers, mountains, etc), major historic events, food, way of life, etc.

Help me brainstorm how to do this and how I can keep up with it. I am sure we will run out of steam at some point.

[Jackie]

I find it easiest to design courses like this if I spend time settling on 1-2 good spines first. Those are the books that I would use for every region. When I start running low on energy, they are the books that I can use to anchor us and keep moving forward.

I’ve been taking a bit of a different approach, focusing on the daily lives of people in the modern world, but here’s what my daughter and I have been doing for the past year: http://everchangingchild.blogspot.com/2017/08/cultural-geography.html

[scbusf]

Thank you, Jackie!!!! 

[ByGrace3]

I ended up doing my own Geography curriculum this year. I wanted something I could use with my 8, 11, and 13 year old's together, and I couldn't find anything out there. I landed on Memoria Press III as a spine with the Classroom atlas that they use. I added Usborne World Religions which I had on  the shelf, and purchased Readers Digest DVD's to go along with our studies. I then scheduled read alouds and readers for each unit. Our read alouds are mostly missionary biographies. I purchased nice hardcover sketch books and the kids will use them as "commonplace books"-- filling them with mapping, copywork, drawings of the places we study etc. We will be playing the 10 Days games for each continent. It is looking to be a fun year.

Pick a spine, make an outline and then fill in a few resources and books. It has been a good bit of work, but I am pretty much done and we are excited to get started!