Home Education - Geography

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    Growing Up In Australia

        Today I’m meeting families from all around the world at Simple Homeschool’s Global Link Up. This concludes the Read the World Book Club, which despite a keen desire to do participate in didn’t eventuate for us. Come on over and join in the Globe Hop.     Tell us about your family. Hi, I’m Erin. I’m passionate about all things books, have a developing passion for photography and a self-taught skill for juggling large family logistics. My husband is my Prince Charming and incredibly skilled in many areas. His career is in Finance with a talent for Excel and databases. He moonlights on weekends as an owner building, building our large home and…

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    Australian Geography Unit

    We’re rather excited to be ‘trekking around’ Australia with our Australian Geography Unit. Learning more about our nation and deepen our appreciation of this huge and diverse land we are blessed to live in. Over the past decade and a half we’ve embarked upon many unit studies, previously though our unit studies have centered around history, this time we’re focusing our studies from a geographical perspective. I’m sharing my plans with you in the hope that you may inspired to also explore Australia. I designed these plans to be a ‘template,’ wishing to re-use them for travelling to other continents/countries/states, only needing to give the plans a minor/localised tweaking. We will begin our studies with…

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    Map Fever

    Map Fever has struck!  We, well I;) began this term with high hopes for our geography studies.  After all Africa is a fascinating continent, alas Trail Guide to World Geography was not a good fit for us.   We pottered with enjoying some African picture and chapter books, read Children Just Like Me and completed a couple of fact sheets. Still I was failing to capture any enthusiasm, when I remembered what fun we had creating Mega Maps a couple of years back.  We printed out a nine page mega map, taped to the window and then taped a local architecture’s ‘cast off’ plans over the top.    Michelangelo meticulously traced out…

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    Geography for Highschool

    This year my three teenagers have been using Brenda Runkle’s ‘World Physical Geography’, this is the first time we have used a formal approach to geography. As Koala has just finished the program (she has crammed a year’s program into 6 months) I have interviewed her as my guest poster:) Welcome Koala:) I’d like to ask you some questions about your World Physical geography studies, thank you for taking the time to answer. Was this program written as a text book or a living book? It wasn’t a text book in the dry sense of the word, but more a living book with text questions. Each chapter had revision questions…

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    Making Our Own Mega Maps

    We have been engrossed in making Mega Maps! You have the choice of just how huge or small you wish to create your map. We chose big:) Our map was printed out onto nine sheets of paper, I approached a local architect and asked for discarded sheets to past our maps onto the back of. Big sister was lots of help. Plenty of team work and discussion. The little ones worked on the map of Australasia. Koala was very meticulous in her work. They look fantastic coloured in. The whole wall covered in maps has a huge visual impact!!

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    Enjoying and Recording the Sights of Asia

    Following are the detailed plans which I will hand to our older children for our Asian sojourn. I have previously shared our goals and resources. I share them here in the humble hope that they may help others as I have been often been generously aided. Create a continent notebook; include narrations, art work, recipes,photos, maps, flags and Fact Sheet from your study. Travel Agency magazines are great for pics. Narration illustrations can use watercolors, lyra pencils, or block crayons. Mapwork Draw a map of your country, include the capital city, neighbouring oceans and countries. Continent Felt Maps You may like to make a felt map. Play some of the…

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    Traveling to Asia, Resources

    As I shared in my previous post we are ‘traveling’ to Asia in the coming Term. I have been gathering together book titles (from home and the library), audio resources and online links. Just what countries we are visiting are primarily dictated by the books I have found. Online Resources National Geographic Map Game Online Games (Looks great) More Games World Geography Quiz World Geography Map Games Foreign Languages Foreign Languages Foreign Languages for Travelers Thanks to Marilyn for the above links. (I substituted Asia for Africa.) General Resources * denotes Library Bks DK Geography of the World Children Just Like Me Children Just Like Me: Celebrations! Global Art: Activities,…

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    Geography Goals

    This term we are ‘visiting’ Asia; by popular request. As Australia is part of Australasia I feel it important to know our neighbours. For the last week I have been working on detailed plans and truthfully I have found it difficult to gather my thoughts (and resources) as we have not often studied geography in a deliberate manner. After ‘putting the horse before the cart’ with details, and struggling; it occurred to me there was another, easier course to plot. It would be more helpful to consider just what did I want the children to come away from their ‘sojourn’ with? The answer is basic map, flora/fauna and cultural knowledge.…

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    Geography Songs – Review

    I am searching for solid resources for Geography but am increasingly frustrated in my attempts to find what I am looking for; resources that teach straight geography knowledge. Continents and their countries, countries and their capitals, rivers and mountains. Generally I want the children to have a good grasp of just where place names are located when they read of them. Earlier this term we purchased the Geography Songs Kit from Audio Memory. There are 33 songs that teach the names and locations of the continents, oceans, planets and 225 countries. The children and I listened to a few samples online, I read many reviews and it appeared to be…