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TJ's Homeschool Geography Curriculum  

Here is a simple outline for geography that I put together for our use at home. 

My main objective in teaching geography is more so that my children know where places are and a little bit about those places so you won't find a lot of topics that are covered in a traditional geography curriculum.

At any rate, I thought I would provide my outline here in case it was helpful to other homeschoolers.

Below is the outline, plus links to resources we have used/plan to use for our studies insha Allah.

(It's a work in progress and so I anticipate cleaning it up a bit and adding more resources as we go along, insha Allah).

 

Overview

 

  1. The Earth

  2. Location/Direction

  3. Oceans

  4. Continents

  5. Biomes

  6. Landforms

  7. Geography Terms

  8. Countries

 

Outline

 

The Earth

 

Read and discuss:

You may want to set up a Geography Bulletin board for your studies.

    1. Hello Earth - About Our Home: http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0001-hello-earth.php

    2. Hello Earth – How Big is the Earth: http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0002-how-big-is-the-earth.php

    3. Hello Earth---How Big is the Earth, part II http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0003-how-big-is-the-earth.php

    4. Hello Earth—How big is the Earth, part III http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0004-how-big-is-the-earth.php

    5. Geography – A snapshot of our world today http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0011-geography-a-snapshot-of-the-earth-today.php

Crafts:

 

Papier Mache Globe: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/globe/

Earth Pendant or Window Light Catcher http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/earthday/glue/

 

Location, Direction

 

Directions: N, E, S, W, NE, SW, SE, NW

 

Activities for younger children:

 

Show your children north, south, east, and west by using your home as a reference point. Perhaps you can see the sun rising in the morning through a bedroom window that faces east and setting at night through the westerly kitchen window:

 

Reinforce their knowledge by playing games. Once children have their directional bearings, you can hide an object, for example, then give them directions to its location: "two steps to the north, three steps west ...."

 

Here is an outline of our lesson to introduce the concept more formally:

1. Show students a compass (or picture of one) and tell its function. 

2. Using a compass face printout/compass rose (Enchanted learning), tell student the names of the directions: N, E, S, W (while pointing to). Have students repeat after you. Also show where each is on a globe. Point out characteristics such as north is opposite of south and east is opposite of west.

 

3.  Pick a location on a globe or map and "walk" with your fingers in a direction and ask which direction your fingers are walking in.  Repeat with other directions as needed.

 

4. Play a game where you tell student to take x steps north, south, etc (after showing student where these are in the classroom. You may want to put up post its or posters to mark these for future reference). Or you can walk in the directions and have student tell you which direction you are walking in.

 

5. If you feel student is ready for NE, SW, etc, introduce these.  Tell student that we always start with either N or S to describe these directions.

6. Play a game as in  # 4 with these directions (NE, SW,etc).

 

7. Practice the directions on a map.  There was a really cute map here at Ed Helper for younger students to use. To make it more fun, we had each one pick a house to live in and told them to go to different places (store, pet shop, someone else's house) on the map by telling what direction they would go in.  At first we just pretending as if we were not taking roads so they could use SE, NW, etc. Then we pretended they could only use roads so that they would use only N, E, W, S. If we did it again, I would of course (insha allah) reverse the order, the roads first, then just walking. After doing the activities this way, we did the questions on the worksheet. Again, you may want to start with this.

 

8. Have student label a compass rose of their own and color it in.

 

9. Extra. These activities were a little juvenile for my older son so while we were doing the above activities, he made a 3 part treasure map for the younger ones (they would have to use the directions N, E, W, S, etc to go to the next steps and find the next map. At the end, he placed some candy bars for them to share when they finished. The kids had a blast!

(My son burned the edges of the map to make it look ancient)

 

For older students, use more advanced or real maps and have them tell where locations are in relation to other ones.

 

Other activities from "Help Your Child Learn Geography"

 

* Go on a walk and collect natural materials such as acorns and leaves to use for an art project. Map the location where you found those items.

  

* Look for your city or town on a map. If you live in a large city or town, you may even be able to find your street. Point out where your relatives or your children's best friends live.

  

* By looking at a map, your children may learn why they go to a particular school. Perhaps the next nearest school is on the other side of a park, a busy street, or a large hill. Maps teach us about our surroundings by portraying them in relation to other places.

 

* Before taking a trip, show your children a map of where you are going and how you plan to get there. Look for other ways you could go, and talk about why you decided to use a particular route. Maybe they can suggest other routes.

 

* Encourage your children to make their own maps using legends with symbols. Older children can draw a layout of their street, or they can illustrate places or journeys they have read about. Some books, like Winnie-the-Pooh and The Wizard of Oz, contain fanciful maps. These can be models for children to create and plot their own stories.

 

* Keep a globe and a map of the United States (or a world map) near the television and use them to locate places talked about on television programs, or to follow the travels of your favorite sports team.

 

Longitude and Latitude (older students)

 Reading/Discussion:

    1. Finding Points on a Globe: http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0013-finding-points-on-a-globe.php

    2. Latitude: http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0014-latitude.php

    3. Longitude: http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0015-longitude.phpPlotting Your Location: http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-for-kids/0016-plotting-your-location.php

If you want a brief explanation:

Text Box: Location: Position on the Earth's Surface Look at a map. Where are places located? To determine location, geographers use a set of imaginary lines that crisscross the surface of the globe. Lines designating "latitude" tell us how far north or south of the equator a place is. Lines designating "longitude" measure distance east and west of the prime meridian--an imaginary line running between the North Pole and the South Pole through Greenwich, England. You can use latitude and longitude as you would a simple grid system on a state highway map. The point where the lines intersect is the "location"--or global address. For example, St. Louis, Missouri, is roughly at 39° (degrees) north latitude and 90° west longitude. Why are things located in particular places and how do those places influence our lives? Location further describes how one place relates to another. St. Louis is where the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers meet about midway between Minneapolis-St. Paul and New Orleans. It developed as a trading center between east and west, north and south. Source: Help your child learn geography, Department of Education.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

       

       

       

       

       

       


 

Here are some other reading resources we found related to Latitude and Longitude. We didn't get to these for "class" as the geokids did a great job explaining and I didn't want to wear them out, but these looked excellent as well.

EarthKam's Map Reading Skills and activities (PDF)

Students gain basic map skills, becoming familiar with the continents, bodies of water, hemispheres, latitude and longitude, globes, and flat maps of Earth.
 

Longitude and Latitude

Even simpler explanation and includes activities

 

Longitude and Latitude Activities

After our reading, we did the following activities:

Label the Latitude and Longitude-Enchanted Learning

World Latitude and Longitude activity - Enchanted Learning. We changed this activity a little bit and I read the coordinates and they found the places on the map provided in the activity. This was a real winner with my 12 year old and 15  year old.

Latitude and Longitude Workshee from Teacher Vision

Similar  to the one above from Enchanted learning, except it doesn't provide a map.

 

This is as far as we have gotten to date. As we go along, I will fill in more resources, insha Allah, but the rest of our intended course of study is below.

 

Oceans

a.    Learn the names of the oceans and be able to identify them on a map/globe and adjacent countries.

b.    Learn some facts about each ocean including the largest/smallest.

Continents

c.    What is a continent?

d.   Learn the names of the seven continents and be able to identify them on a map/globe.

o   Quiz software to help to learn and review the continents or make/buy continents puzzle.

§  Oceans and Continents online game (simple, but cute)

http://funschool.kaboose.com/globe-rider/games/game_my_world.html

 

Continent Books from Enchanted Learning: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/books/geography/continents/

 

Biomes

Reading: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/biomes/

Suggested topics to explore: temperature/weather, soil, plants, animals

Make a biome report/notebooking page for each biome:

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/biomes/chart1/index.shtml

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/biomes/chart2/index.shtml

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/biomes/chart3/index.shtml

 

 

 

   Landforms

 (learn about things such as: desert, river, lake, plateaus, glacier). Learn the definitions and find examples of these around the world.

Student may want to make his own glossary/dictionary and draw/copy paste pictures of examples.

Enchanted Learning’s Geography glossary is an excellent resource for this. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/geography/landforms/glossary.shtml

 

Geography terms

concepts like city, State, and continent, climate, population, and other terms that are used in publications like the CIA world fact book.

Countries

 

Learn about at least 5 countries on each continent (all the countries in North America). Be sure to include your home country or country of residence if you don’t know much about it.

 

For each country:

  • Label this country on a world map with country borders. Write in this countries neighbors as well. (National geographic has blank world maps with borders)

  • Get an outline map of this country and label/learn about the capital and major cities.

  • Learn about each country’s land features (such as major rivers, mountains); show these on your country map.

  •   Learn about their culture (language, clothing, traditions, foods, major religions, etc)

Use TJ’s Country Fact Sheet Form to record information

 

People shape the personality of their areas. The beliefs, languages, and customs distinguish one place from another.

 

5. Make different ethnic foods, take your children to an ethnic restaurant, or treat them to ethnic snacks at a folk festival. Such an experience is an opportunity to talk about why people eat different foods. What ingredients in ethnic dishes are unique to a particular

area? For example, why do the Japanese eat so much seafood? (If your children look for Japan on a map they will realize it is a country of many islands.)

 

6. Read stories from or about other countries, and books that describe journeys. Many children's books provide colorful images of different places and a sense of what it would be like to live in them. Drawings or photographs of distant places or situations can arouse interest in other lands.

The Little House in the Big Woods, Holiday Tales of Sholem  Aleichem, and The Polar Express are examples of books with descriptions of place that have transported the imaginations of many young readers. There is a bibliography at the end of this booklet, and your librarian will have more suggestions.

(Suggestioins 5/6 are from "Help your Child Learn Geography)

 

7.  Learn a few phrases in the native language, make a native recipe.

8.  Learn about famous landmarks

9. Learn about it’s climate and how it affects life there; learn about natural disasters that are common there.

Weather has important geographic implications that affect

the character of a place. The amount of sun or rain, heat or

cold, the direction and strength of the wind, all determine

such things as how people dress, how well crops grow, and the

extent to which people will want to live in a particular spot.

 

Use a weather map to look up the temperatures of cities

around the world and discover how hot each gets in the

summer and how cold each gets in the winter. Ask your

children if they can think of reasons why different

locations have different temperatures. Compare these

with your town. Some children enjoy finding the

place that is the hottest or the coldest.

from "Help your Child Learn Geography

 

 

10. Learn about its people, (nationalities ,  what they are called, example, people from France are French)

11.  Find out what their major environmental and social issues, etc.

12. Find out about how people get around

People are scattered unevenly over the Earth. How do they

get from one place to another? What are the patterns of

movement of people, products, and information ? Regardless of

where we live, we rely upon each other for goods, services, and

information. In fact, most people interact with other places

almost every day. We depend on other places for the food,

clothes, and even items like the pencil and paper our children

use in school. We also share information with each other using

telephones, newspapers, radio, and television to bridge the

distances.

from "Help your Child Learn Geography

 

13. Find out what this countries chief export/import products, crops are.

14. Look up and report on current events for each of the countries.

Use TJ’s Country Current Events form

15.  Find out about the currency/coins and stamps for that country (collect pictures or the real thing if you are able.

16.  Take a virtual tour online of each country, viewing photos and other features.

17.  Try to get a pen pal from each of these countries.

18. Collect brochures, travel guides and other information about this country. The embassy, travel agencies, and online resources are good places to start.

 

Other activity Ideas

 

You may want to make a lapbook/notebook pages/collages for each country.

You may also want to make a table to compare the different countries or write a compare/contrast essay on two countries that lie on the same continent.

 Have student make up a quiz or trivia cards based upon what was learned.

                   Some resources that are great to use in general:

 

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

 

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