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Have you often felt that your understanding of geography is lacking? If you do, you’re not alone. Most American adults will probably tell you that they were taught very little world geography growing up in school. Amatuer “word on the street” interviews and formal surveys back it up. Most Americans can’t tell you where the majority of countries are on a map, and many don’t know their state capitals. One thing I was sure of when I decided to homeschool: my kids would know where countries were on a map. They would not be a statistic. The question was - how did I do that? The traditional idea in education today is that social studies (geography, culture, and history) should start with the child and then branch outward. You talk about family units and neighborhood “helpers” like firefighters and doctors in preschool and kindergarten. Through most of elementary school, you study the history of your town, state, and country. Only when a child is late elementary, at the earliest, do kids branch out to the world at large. The thought is that kids can’t understand things far removed from their own lives. The classical model of education is vastly different. In a classical education, the history of the entire world should be taught chronologically. Geography, therefore, begins with the earliest civilizations with recorded history: those on the continents of Africa and Asia. This gives a child a sense that there is a great big world out there, and they are only a small part of it. It combats the self-centeredness that permeates so much of our culture. I’ve also found that young kids are extremely fascinated by the cultures of faraway lands. This was especially important to my husband who is an associate pastor over missions at our church. He wanted our kids to have a global worldview, and I agreed. The classical cycle of geography, therefore, made the most sense. This is the order in which you learn geography classically: Africa, Asia, Europe, the South Pacific Islands, Australia, South America, North America, then your own country’s geography in more detail (for us, that’s the United States). You go through the cycle, then you start over again, then you start again. By the time they graduate, your child will have studied world geography at least three times. My three kids do geography together, so they don’t all necessarily start the cycle in the same place, but that’s okay. The general idea is to broaden their worldview beyond their own culture. So, how do we do it? Well, after years of tweaking, I have come up with the simplest way to teach my kids world geography. I was able to see the fruit of my labors when we watched the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremonies a couple of months ago. My kids knew where almost all of the countries were (generally speaking). It was exciting that my kids knew about countries that I didn’t even know existed until I was an adult. We start with Kathy Troxel’s Geography Songs. It comes with a giant world map that I hang on the wall. Inside the book that accompanies the music CD, are maps of each area. As we listen to the song, I point to each country on the map inside the book with the end of a pencil. (Sometimes it takes me a few tries to get the hang of it!) After we sing the song, we look more closely at the culture of one of the countries featured in the song.
I’ve purchased two fascinating and gorgeous books for this: Material World and Hungry Planet. Even though these books were written in the 90s, they still give a great taste of different cultures with stunning photographs. Your kids will get a glimpse of an ordinary family from that country. (Please note that occasionally there is National Geographic type nudity in these books.)
However, there are many countries not covered in these books. If a country isn’t featured, I see if our public library has a book on it. My favorite series is Enchantment of the World:
I don’t read these books, by the way. We just flip through them together and look at the pictures to get a visual of what the place is like. In addition, we pray for that nation. These books, being secular, don’t tell us the full picture of what’s going on spiritually in these countries. For example, Enchantment of the World will claim that the middle eastern countries have freedom of religion. While that may be technically true, most of us know that isn’t what’s actually happening. For great information on how to pray for these countries, you can check the Voice of the Martyrs website.
When we do United States Geography, I use the series America the Beautiful:
We also loved flashcards of state capitals similar to these:
I highly recommend using the library for getting a visual of these countries and states to cut down on the expense. After we look at one of these books for our “country of the week,” we color that country in on the large world map that came with Geography Songs. My kids like to take turns choosing what color we will use. We also find the country on our globe. I highly recommend investing in a globe because flat maps change the shapes of the countries. For example, you can’t tell on a flat map how large Alaska is or how far away from the mainland United States Hawaii is. On a globe, you can.
Then, I give my kids a blank map of whatever continent/region our geography song is covering. I use Hands On Geography (we don’t do the activities, just the maps). You can also find great blackline maps for free online. My kids fill in as many countries (or states) they can from memory, then they use an atlas to fill in the rest. I like National Geographic World Atlas for Young Explorers. My Kids Filling in their Weekly Maps:
Once we finish an entire continent, we do a huge map from mapsfortheclassroom.com. I love these maps because they are so enormous, making it easy to fill in everything. The downside is, several years ago they suddenly went from being homeschool friendly to being geared only for schools. You now have to place a minimum order of twelve maps. I simply ordered all the maps I needed for years to come, but you could also go in with another family. Thankfully, you just have to order twelve maps total, not twelve of the same map. Another upside is that the maps are inexpensive. Here are my kids with their Africa maps:
It takes us about three weeks or more to finish these, especially since we only do geography on Mondays. That’s right, you only have to do this once a week. If you’re thinking that’s not enough, you can increase it for your family. However, I’ve personally found it difficult to do it more frequently. It’s still way more geography than I got in school, however.
What about projects? Keep in mind that those are very time-consuming. I recommend only doing projects occasionally. Holidays are a good time to pause and do some projects. For example, we did a Christmas around the world unit that was fun. You just want to make sure your kids are actually learning and retaining the names of the countries and where they are on a map. Even if they can’t find the specific location of a country like Tunisia, at least they will know what continent and general area it’s in. If you spend too much time making French crepes or Chinese paper lanterns, your kids won’t have time to commit the map skills to long term memory. Just something to keep in mind. I hope I’ve helped you feel more confident about giving your kids a great foundation in world geography!
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AuthorHi, I'm Melanie! I'm a homeschooling mom of three kids ages 13, 11, and 9. I have a BS in English Secondary Education from Asbury University plus 30 hours of gifted certification course work. I've taught in just about every situation you can imagine. Public school, private, homeschool hybrid, and private tutoring. The most important thing I've learned? One on one, individualized instruction can't be beat. Archives
July 2022
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