Geography suggestions

[Amp]

I'm wanting to add in a Geography study for my kids (K, 2nd, 4th and 7th).  We use SOTW for history so this is extra and will only be one day a week.  I'm okay with it taking longer than one school year.  I don't want a big curriculum that has tons of projects, I'm mainly looking for a good spine with country info., maybe maps, pictures, etc to use with the resources I already have.  I'm looking at Memoria Press Geography but I'm unsure on which one to get and would like other suggestions.

[Slache]

Trail Guide To World Geography is definitely worth a gander.

[hollyhock2]

Take a look at the Visits to... series at Simply Charlotte Mason. It's designed to use with the whole family and I believe you can schedule it however you want (in their history programs, I think they schedule it once a week). If you do it once per week, you might only get through one book/continent per year, though.

[8filltheheart]

I am the opposite of a textbook/workbook homeschooler, but one quick and easy workbook I do use  every few yrs is Evan Moore's Daily Geography.  It can be done in about 5 mins/day and covers the fundamentals of geography.

Daily Geography

[rjand6more]

I really like the Visits to...series also.

They were not done with the series when I used it.  So, I made my own to finish out.

There are books scheduled into the program.  Hungry Planet, Material World, and readers according to age.  So, there is a cultural aspect as well. Love that.

Edited June 30, 2019 by rjand6more

[SarahNN]

For geography, we really enjoyed taking a "world trip", including recipes, music, and art from different countries around the world.  I have a list of books that we used for 20 countries; let me know if you want a copy of that.  Also, these two books are absolutely AMAZING: tons of full-color photos, and really memorable:

Hungry Planet - What the World Eats

Material World - A Global Family Portrait

[Ellie]

We loved the geography songs. Each participant needs his own booklet (maps, lyrics to songs, activities in the back). I think you have permission to make photocopies, but honestly, it's just best to have the booklets to keep all the papers in one place. And when it is finished, look! there's a nice tidy booklet with colored maps and stuff! 🙂

[Janeway]

I like "A Trip Around the World" and "Another Trip Around the World." It is fun. We did it in a coop once so it is easily a once a week thing. You can add more to it if you like, videos and books and such. It is something where you could devote maybe 1-3 hrs a week, as a once a week thing. More time when you do recipes, but easily could keep it to one hour.

[Momto6inIN]

On 6/29/2019 at 7:31 PM, hollyhock2 said:

Take a look at the Visits to... series at Simply Charlotte Mason. It's designed to use with the whole family and I believe you can schedule it however you want (in their history programs, I think they schedule it once a week). If you do it once per week, you might only get through one book/continent per year, though.

 

On 6/29/2019 at 7:59 PM, 8FillTheHeart said:

I am the opposite of a textbook/workbook homeschooler, but one quick and easy workbook I do use  every few yrs is Evan Moore's Daily Geography.  It can be done in about 5 mins/day and covers the fundamentals of geography.

Daily Geography

So after reading this thread I did some research and ended up competely revamping our geography plans LOL

I am now the proud owner of the entire Visits To series and an Evan Moor workbook 😊

WTM should really get kickbacks from Amazon for all the click throughs and purchases these boards generate ...

[Mom28kds]

Any idea if this Visits to and Daily Geography would be good for a high school credit? I'm trying to find a Geography for my 7th, 8th and 9th.

Edited July 25, 2019 by Mom28kds

[acresoft]

For Geography the following are both good options.

Master Books Elementary Geography & Cultures https://www.christianbook.com/elementary-geography-cultures-pack-3-volumes/9780890518144/pd/518144?event=Homeschool|1006606

Or

Into All the World is a nice text book.

[Momto6inIN]

20 hours ago, Mom28kds said:

Any idea if this Visits to and Daily Geography would be good for a high school credit? I'm trying to find a Geography for my 7th, 8th and 9th.

Daily Geography for sure not, it's way too easy for high school, it's meant to be a K-6th resource.

The Visits To books as written are designed to be done in 15-20 min once a week. I'm planning on having my 7th and 8th graders do 3 books each year and doing 15-20 min 4 days a week, which isn't anywhere near enough for a high school credit.

I guess it could be a world geography credit if your high schooler did all 6 books in 1 year and also do all the extra projects where they ask them to compare the countries on various measures and keep a running spreadsheet. The required books Material World and What the World Eats are high school level reading, so that would be fine I think.

[Homeschoolmom3]

There are some great books you can use for living geography.  For high school we have combined our time period and then studied different places and just added mapping to where we were reading about.  There are many good books out there, some that we have really enjoyed are: 

·       American Traveler by Zug -1700s

·       Travels of William Bartram by VanDoren - 1700s

·       A Long Walk to Water: based on a true story by Linda Sue Park - 1900s

·       Sufferings in Africa:  The Incredible True Story of a Shipwreck, Enslavement, and Survival on the Sahara by Captain James Riley - 1800s

 

 

Edited August 10, 2019 by Homeschoolmom3
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[kbutton]

On 6/27/2019 at 12:37 PM, Amp said:

I'm wanting to add in a Geography study for my kids (K, 2nd, 4th and 7th).  We use SOTW for history so this is extra and will only be one day a week.  I'm okay with it taking longer than one school year.  I don't want a big curriculum that has tons of projects, I'm mainly looking for a good spine with country info., maybe maps, pictures, etc to use with the resources I already have.  I'm looking at Memoria Press Geography but I'm unsure on which one to get and would like other suggestions.

 

On 6/28/2019 at 12:08 AM, Paradox5 said:

With that a big a spread, you are probably better off buying a Children Just Like Me encyclopedia and hopping your way through.

MP Geog needs to be started at Book 1. If you want to do US first, that is States and Capitals. The MP program's goal is simply to memorize the countries/states names, locations, and their capitals, not an in-depth survey. 

Just chiming in that MP is a great program for what it is, but it's not a great fit for your age range.

For anyone else considering it, it does get progressively harder each year, and it does have some information on various regions/countries--if you do SOTW, your kids would recognize some of the historical background information in the text or have a good background to absorb the background info for each country. 

[kbutton]

On 7/24/2019 at 10:29 PM, Mom28kds said:

Any idea if this Visits to and Daily Geography would be good for a high school credit? I'm trying to find a Geography for my 7th, 8th and 9th.

Have you looked at Mapping the World with Art by Ellen McHenry? It's not a memorize style of curriculum, and it is heavy on art. It's about the history of mapmaking and exploration. You can do the readings separately. You can do the map drawing separately. The other art is something you can choose not to do or to do as art credit. My high schooler did this as part of his geography for 9th but added in other things (like Geo II and Geo II from MP, and lots of podcasts, some documentaries). We hadn't planned to do a full year of geography, but I didn't like the resource I found for his other semester of social studies, so we beefed things up and made do. 

If someone took the time to research podcasts ahead of time, Stuff You Missed in History class has a lot of resources to go with Mapping the World and also many that cover pre-Columbian civilizations in the New World. It also would go really well with some books like 1491 and 1493 both of which have shorter companion titles if you don't want to read the big fat books. 

[ScoutTN]

We enjoy Beautiful Feet Geography for US. Reading Holling C. Holling books and coloring maps. 

Not systematic or thorough, but lovely.