I'm sharing some of our favourite resources with you in this post.
Geography was NOT a subject I enjoyed at school or one that I felt excited about. It was delivered mostly by textbook and I just didn't really understand the content or feel engaged by it.
I didn't want my children' experience of geography to be the same so I did LOTS of hands on activities to try and engage their minds.
Here are some of the activities we did and some of the resources we have used over the years.
Basic resources we have used over the years (SOTW below is in a series and we have used it in its entirety. Please note here I have just linked to the first book in the series).
Other Resources:
A spinning globe (my kiddos have loved having access to one each)
An Atlas (we have used several different ones but find the Jacaranda ones great for home use. Thrift shops often have copies).
Activities we have really enjoyed include:
Using our globe and reading through Charlotte Mason's Elementary Geography
Baking sugar cookies in the shape of continents
Going to the local travel agency, asking for travel brochure books and creating a project by researching a country from that (and other information gleaned).
More activities: WATCHING 'WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO?' episodes, learning about the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer and locating which state in the USA the Super Bowl teams come from each year in our atlas and on our floor map.
Below are photos of our kids locating the travel routes on a map of North America while reading through Little House on the Prairie, visiting local museums and places of significance and creating mini Lego flags.
We used wrapping ribbons to mark out the equator and tropics on a WORLD MAP.
We also cut up exercise books to make our own little 'passports'. We'd choose a country each month, learn about that country, cook some food from that country and write down some basic facts about it from our research.
Our kids have also learned about tectonic plates shifting (using oreos to demonstrate) and have cut up the continents to show plate shifts. In the bottom right hand photo, Stassi is sewing her chosen country of Canada's flag (for our mock Olympics opening games ceremony).
Our children have learned a lot from family and friends who have travelled too. We have tracked their journey's using apps, have listened to their stories when they have returned from being abroad and have loved collecting currency and postcards among many other things.
We have created our own country cards (with country name, capital and continent written on the back). We have made sour strap continents and learned a fun continent name game using our BIG FELT MAP. We have also enjoyed tours like the Montreal Gold Field Tour we took one year down on the South Coast.
Our rural kids have spent time in our locales like visiting grandparents who live on the Coast in the Mountains.
They also have made flag blocks, learned about different terrain and used mapping coordinates in Minecraft.
Making a salt dough map of Australia was one of our latest projects and was thoroughly enjoyed by the kids.
Having Google Earth adventures and printing off the photos and putting them into a photo album.
There are SO many more activities that we have done to make it accessible and enjoyable. There are loads of great ideas on Pinterest (I set myself up a private geography board so I could refer back to it when needed and it was a great help).
I hope you and your kiddos enjoy making your study of the world as exciting as ever!
Lusi x