Geography

While I don't have a formal geography curriculum, we work a little on geography every day. I was stunned when I realized how little my children knew about geography. Not anymore! They are becoming geography whizzes...at least compared to where they were in August. Everything is relative, you know.

We generally start the day with our world map, the globe, the map of the U.S. and the Daily Geography book that my sweet friend let me borrow so I didn't have to spend even more money on curriculum. The book is set up so that you cover only two questions per day, but the questions are so basic (believe me, my kids needed basic!) that we do 20 most mornings. We usually do geography while they're eating breakfast. They think it's a fun way to start the day.

We love this game that is based on the wonderful children's book The Scrambled States of America. It's called, cleverly enough, Scrambled States.

The game is great for helping kids learn the location of the states in relation to each other, as well as their location on the map, the location of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and it also teaches them state capitals and nicknames. While they learn a lot when they play the game, they don't realize they're learning...which is the best kind of learning. My children ask to play this game every day and always want to play "just one more time". (I feel compelled to mention here that every game we have by Gamewright is fabulous.)

Another resource we use for geography is this great website: Maggie's Earth Adventure. There are fun geography games and activities there. You'll even find some really good math and language arts games.

I'm feeling much better about my children's level of geography knowledge. It's really too bad there is no one to test them on that. No it isn't.