Lesson Focus: Geography

Words such as archipelago and isthmus, peninsula and straight, brings back the horror days of late elementary school for me. I didn't see why they weren't introduced to me a few years earlier, when I had looked at a globe with barely concealed fascination. In fact, I still don't see why children must wait until about Fourth grade to learn the important differences in geological formations, or for global understanding. My children, at 6 and almost 4, could not be more fascinated with the idea of boys like themselves living half a world away. So, I've come up with ways to teach geography, without all the wrote memorization. In fact, my boys are teaching me more than I'm teaching them.

Meet Mike The Monkey.
Over the holidays of November and December, we pull back from homeschooling, knowing our schedules get pretty hectic. During that time I made a felt stuffed animal called Mike The Monkey. I had the brilliant idea that Mike would travel the globe and we would learn about all his travel locations each month.
So I sewed together little Mike (he's only about 4 inches tall).

When he was finished I began to think about what the children need to learn about the world around them. At this age, they knew nothing. They really had no idea the world didn't end at Grandma's house. So the new question arose - how do you teach young children spacial awareness. They really didn't have a clue or a care about time, so I couldn't use time differences or time zones as the measuring factor.

But, they did know about animals. As boys will be boys, they had always been fascinated with different animals and their habitats - so they knew some places were cold and some hot. I used that as the basis and decided the first location on Mikes travel plan would be Africa (as it contains 4 of the 5 major biomes). Then I began trying to plan out how I would teach an almost 7 year old and an almost 4 year old about the same places, including information that wouldn't overwhelm one while boring the other. Here's what I came up with.

Step One: For Me:
*Make up a bulletin board with the name of the country or continent across the top.
*Find as many print-ables as possible about that country from websites such as www.enchantedlearning.com and www.dltk-teach.com this includes songs, crafts, a bit about the local languages, etc.
*Have everything put into weekly folders.
---Week 1: General Habitats, information ,travel, etc.
---Week 2: Specific Geological significance, More specific present situation
---Week 3: Historical significance
---Week 4: Simulation of Life: this is where we cook native foods, dress like the natives, present dad with crafts, and kids give dad a presentation of what they've learned about the country (including singing and dancing is appropriate).

Step Two: For The 3.5 year old:
*Transportation: He knows about different types of transportation. So his first job (when he finds out the destination) is to figure out how Mike will get there. Plane, boat, what have you.
*Attire: He's also learning about weather and how to dress for different types of weather. So his second duty is to determine what type of clothing Mike needs to pack. {I cut out various articles of clothing in felt for possible attire, so he selects what we need for the month).

Step Three: For The Both To Learn Together:
*Habitats/Biomes: What's the classification? Grasslands, Rain Forest, Etc?
*Unique Animals: What animals are found in this location? What animals are unique to this habitat?
*Geological Specifics: What oceans surround it? What type of land mass is it? What countries are closest?
*Types of Foods?
*Arts & Crafts?
*Music?
*Religions?

Step Four: For The 6 year old:
*Topographical specifics: Are there many mountains nearby? What cities are the biggest or the most historically significant?
*Compared to our home state, what's the population like?
*What has the country been like throughout history?
*Ecological Dangers: Are there animals in danger of extinction? Deforestation? Why? Who is to blame? It's important for them to be respectful of the world around them. We've even gone so far as to write letters to organizations and congressmen.

Will this type of curriculum give them specifics into each countries Gross National Product? No, but then I'm way older than 7 and I still don't know that about every country. The nice things about this type of curriculum is the freedom involved. If you have a child who is fascinated with Trade, than you can investigate deeper into that, for one who loves geological finds, you can investigate stones and rock formations in the area. For the kids who like to volunteer to help their planet, you can find out different organizations that are assisting the area, etc. There is no limit to the type of info they can learn. The hard part is making the class interested!