Peggy, see file on desktop in Homeschool file for maps!
By Terri Johnson
Are you ever surprised by how little geography most kids know these days? Are you
surprised by how little geography you learned yourself back when you were in school?
American students, in general, have a very limited understanding of world geography in
comparison with students from around the world. European students, for example, have a
much better handle not only of their own surrounding geography but of the entire world as
well. It is the same with students from many parts of Asia and other regions of the world.
Perhaps you are thinking that I am only referring to public school students. But in reality,
homeschooling students often suffer from a lack of knowledge in this subject area as well.
The two subjects most neglected in the homeschooling arena are writing and geography.
Why is this so? Skill areas, such as math, grammar and spelling are easier to measure
than the artful skill of writing and so it gets pushed aside. Similarly, history and science
require such large portions of time that the pursuit of geographical knowledge is often left
out in the cold.
Since writing is not my expertise, we’ll just tackle the subject of geography here in this
short, but effective, ebook. How can we beef up our children’s knowledge of geography in a
way that will not require too much time or proficiency on our part as parents and teachers?
Further, how can we introduce or accelerate this subject in a way that will be enjoyable,
even painless, for our students as well as for ourselves?
Here is my seven month plan that will help you help your students master world and U.S.
geography is just seven months. Think I’m crazy? Follow this step-by-step program and
take my challenge over the course of the next seven month time period (note: this can run
into or through the summer months as your kids will not consider this “school work”). If
your students have not improved drastically in their knowledge of geography, please write to
me and tell me that I am off my rocker and that it doesn’t work.
Here is my email address – terri@knowledgequestmaps.com
On the contrary, if you do see dramatic improvement,
even mastery, in the subject of world and U.S. geography, write to me at the above address
also. I would like to celebrate with you in this wonderful accomplishment!
Let’s dive in... We will divide our program into seven 1-month increments. This is the only
part of this program where you will need to make a decision.
Each of the seven months, your student/s will study a different continent or geographical area and you get to decide the order in which these will be tackled. Here are the seven geographical areas:
Asia
Africa
Europe
United States
North America
South America
Australasia/Antarctica
Globalmania - Master World Geography in Just 7 Months
Each month will now be broken down into four weeks. If you end up with a fifth week in
your month, just consider it review day and have some extra fun in that geographical zone.
Pick one day of the week that will work best for spending some time with geography. For
us, Fridays work best because they are more of a catch-all day. This day of the week is a
bit more relaxed for us with less time constraints. You choose the day that will work best
for your family and then allow your student 30 - 45 minutes, or even up to an hour, for
geography fun.
Note
: This course of study requires that you have a computer and an internet connection
available to you. If you do not have this at home, you may want to choose your library day
for your geography studies so that you can take advantage of the internet connection there.
Or perhaps you can visit a relative’s home that does have an internet connection. Most of
our society now has access to the internet, but if this is not an option for you, then you may
want to choose a different program for your children.
With that said, we will lay out our course of study for the 4 or 5 days out of the month that
your children will work on increasing their geography knowledge.
Month 1: Week 1:
This is the day that we determine the baseline of each student’s current knowledge in this
particular geographical region (whichever part of the world that you have chosen for this
month – see list above). Before you get started with your kids, however, there are two
things I want you to do first. The first order of business is to download a great geography
game from the internet that is completely free and very fun to play. It is located here -
The software download is for windows-only.
If you are using a Mac, play the online version here -
.
Once the game is downloaded onto your computer, click the icon that reads Seterra 4.0 to
begin the game (version number may be higher).
Select the language that you speak and click OK.
Select the region of the country that you are working on this month and press the START button.
We will focus on the subject areas of Countries, Capitals and Cities.
Now is the time to set the baseline for your own knowledge and familiarize yourself with the
game.
Choose Countries and click the START button.
A map will load for the region that you chose and a country name will appear at the very top.
Click the location on the map where you believe that country exists.
If you choose the correct location, the map regionwill turn white.
If you get it on the second try, it will turn a pale yellow.
If you choose the correct location on the third try, the country will turn a darker yellow.
If you do not choose the correct location on this turn, the country will brighten to a light green.
Click on it now and it will change to the color red.
Continue to identify the countries as best as you can until the quiz is completed.
Seterra will give you a score for this round with a place to type in your name.
Type it in and then continue to test your knowledge in the Capitals and then the Cities.
Now determine a baseline for your children. Have them complete the same quizzes and
mark their levels by typing in their names at the end of the rounds. Now, your kids can
continue to play these games to gain higher scores to beat their previous scores and more
significantly, YOU. They will have a lot of fun doing this. Don’t feel bad if they pass you
by very quickly, that’s what you are aiming for. Besides, you can play later once they
lose interest in the game and increase your scores ideally to 100% with just a little bit of
practice.
Globalmania - Master World Geography in Just 7 Months
Week 2:
Choose two or three additional online games for your students to play that will test their
knowledge of geography in that same region. Remember, you are concentrating for one
whole month on just one area of the world. It may be tempting for your students to want
to switch to another region of the world when they feel like they have a good handle on
the area that you have chosen for them this month, but try to keep them focused on this
one large section of the world so that they gain even more knowledge and expertise in this
location.
Here are some additional online games to choose from. There are eight websites listed
here, but remember to just pick two or three for this week.
1.
Sheppard Software has provided many free and fun to play geography games at their
website -
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm
. There are various levels of
play so that your beginners and advanced students alike can find something to hold their
interest. You do need to have Flash Player 6 or higher on your computer to be able to play
these games, but no other downloading is necessary. The instructions are minimal, so it
takes a few minutes to get the hang of the games in some instances (or at least it did for
me!). Also, they do have other games across the curriculum, so feel free to check out their
science and vocabulary games as well – plus many others!
2.
If you or your children like puzzles, then you will love this website! At this website
-
- you can either play with the on-
line puzzle maps, or you can download them to your own computer. If you would rather
not download them, here is the direct link to the online map puzzles -
These are a lot of fun and a great learning tool for kids of all ages (yes, even adults!).
3.
Take National Geographic’s Geography Bee quiz! These questions can be fairly tough,
but you get a second and even third chance to get them right (there are only 3 choices
per question) thereby allowing you to KNOW the answer, which you are unlikely to forget.
Also, the questions are new every day, so you can play every day and get new questions to
answer. Very fun! Here’s the website -
4.
Test your knowledge of world or regional geography with this fun quiz at
A great aspect of this game is that children can see improvement quickly, even by their second round at the same quiz. Builds confidence and knowledge!
5.
This quiz site -
- allows you to not only learn about the countries and capitals of the world, but also the mountains and bodies
of water. If you need a hint, or the answer, it comes in the form of a pop-up, so you may
need to disable your pop-up blocker. This site seems to add new games frequently. Great
learning tool!
6.
This quiz site -
- has both “find” games and “quiz”
games giving your students a well-rounded familiarity with the countries of the world. My
only trouble with these particular games was that it was sometimes difficult to click on the
correct country because the hand spread over more than one country area. But overall, this
is a great site to round out your online geography games.
Globalmania - Master World Geography in Just 7 Months
5
Week 3:
This week, you will need to print some maps for your students to label and color. These
maps have been provided for you at the end of this ebook. Print the maps that have been
included for the region that you are studying during this month. Print a teacher’s answer
map for yourself and a blank map for each of your children. Ask them to label each of the
country and city names that they can remember. They may freeze up and not remember
very much. Do not worry about this. Have them leave their unfinished maps, play another
two or three of the online games listed above. After 30 minutes or so, have them come
back to their map and see how much more information they can add to it. Again, I wouldn’t
ask them to complete everything if they are unsure of the answers. You will come back
to this later. They may be encouraged to color their map if this is an enjoyable activity
for them. If not, don’t push it. The goal here is to learn geography, not press through a
coloring exercise they don’t enjoy.
Note: If you have young students who can read well, but struggle with the manual effort
of handwriting, you may certainly have them dictate the locations to you. Again, we
are learning geography here, not doing a handwriting lesson (unless, of course, you are
combining your skill areas). Your judgment should advise you about how much handwriting
your children are capable of accomplishing in a given day.
Week 4:
Now that your students have a good handle on the geography of the region you are
studying, it’s time to test that knowledge and skill in games against other players. Here are
a couple of websites where your kids can play with other players online. You do not have
to use your real name or identity. In fact, I would suggest that you do not, but do give
yourself a name you will recognize. Be creative when giving yourself or your students a
user name. It can be part of the fun. Allow your students some time to play these games
as they compete against fellow geography enthusiasts and increase their scores.
1.
Here is a great quiz site -
http://www.actionquiz.com/quiz.php?trivia=geography
. Here
you can play against other kids and teachers and see if you can win. You do not have to
use your real name (no reason to, so don’t!) and the game uses a pop-up window. So, if
your computer blocks pop-ups, you either have to disable that feature to play, or if you get
a message that allows you to open the pop-up, you can go about it that way. Warning: this
is a fun game to play and rather addicting. After playing five times against some strong
opponents, I finally won! Also, these quizzes also include flag symbols. You may want to
learn the flags for the countries before playing this game. You can use the Seterra game on
your computer to help you learn these.
2.
This website -
http://www.geosense.net
- also allows you to play alone of against
another player. You are asked to not only identify countries of the world but cities as well.
It is quite challenging and also very addicting. I played six rounds against my opponent
and only won twice (and I thought I knew my geography like the back of my hand – reality
check!). If you do not mind that your scores are not recorded in their log, you can play as
a guest. Or create a login ID to keep track of your scores and establish an identity at this
site.
When your students can compete against other players and win consistently (or even half
the time), they are ready to move onto the next region of the world, which you will do
starting next week unless you have a “fifth” week in your month.
