To my mind, homeschool geography should have two elements. First, it should provide a good overview of the country as a character, so it goes beyond the facts and figures of how much money is made and how many people there are. Second, it should include lots of hands-on, engaging activities.
The first problem I solved by getting lots of books from the library and a few other sources. The second, I turned to Rainbow Resource Center for some great materials.
{This post was sponsored by RainbowResource.com, in exchange for some awesome materials I’m writing this post, but just like always, all opinions are mine, because I’m opinionated}
What worked great for a hands-on world geography unit
First, you need a good globe. I like inflatable globes because when you’re not using them, you can deflate them and they take up way less space. They area also able to be used in this great continents game.
After that, I love interactive maps. Maps you can write on, draw all over, and generally muck up. Rainbow Resource Center has several different possibilities, but I chose this interactive sticker map because of the included stickers. Stickers are AWESOME. I’ll also give a shout-out to the laminated maps because you can do this start of World War 2 activity without ruining the map.
The most powerful interactive map you can get is a puzzle. Get the puzzles with the pieces in the shape of the countries, since my goal was to try out the widest variety of resources possible I only got the African continent, but I’d highly recommend getting the entire set (updated since first starting writing, I did go back and get the entire set, they had one in the Bargain Books, that means it’s a dented box, but I’ll dent the box anyways and I was right it’s awesome, which it came in last Saturday the kids all grabbed it and started putting together the whole world puzzle, and then tried the United States one). It’s amazing how much you can learn from these puzzles (yes that is a post I’m fiddling with right now, probably late November or early December).
It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t suggest a game. My first choice was back-ordered (10 Days in Asia) until December, and I’ll admit I was going to cheat and order it from Amazon so I could still have it, but Amazon’s price was THREE TIMES HIGHER. That was not in my budget, so I hopped back over to Rainbow Resource Center and instead got 10 Days in Europe (since it came in last Saturday, I haven’t had time to play it yet; that’s on the docket for today. I’ll add the picture once we’ve played). This will continue to help you and your kids (because let’s be honest, I don’t remember where most countries are; I hated geography as a kid) learn WHERE countries are. Future Ticia 2025 wants to warn you that the 10 Days series may be out of print. Instead I will say check out my Geography Games post to get some ideas that you can still pick up.
If the 10 Days games are out of your budget, then I recommend getting Cardline Globetrotter. This will help you learn all of those “fun” facts you probably learned in geography back in school (population, size, GDP). I like it because my daughter is willing to play.
Moving on to ways to learn about individual countries. To start out, I picked up Micronations. It lets you build your own country, imagining what the government, flag, and all of those details look like. This makes a great foundation for knowing what it takes to make a nation (incidentally, I’ve promised my kids a 2-week unit from this book around Christmas time). Which leads into…
I picked up this passport/sticker set (imagine a very cool-looking passport which has disappeared upstairs into my kids’ rooms to pretend to be spies), and I’ll tell you I’d probably not bother with the passport part, but just get the stickers (which you can also get). Each sticker set has 120 flags. As we study each country, the kids are putting it into their country passports. This is why I’d say don’t bother with the passport, because I like putting the sticker in their notebooks we were using. Also, it’s one less thing to lose, and I lose a lot of stuff (like, say, the passports before I got a picture).
What didn’t work so great for a hands-on world geography unit (but I still loved)
I had one last item I got that I ended up deciding isn’t what I want for a hands-on world geography unit: Mapping the World With Art. I’ll tell you what, it’s been awesome for our homeschool history lessons. We used it several times during our Age of Exploration Unit, It’s a history of geography book. So it has a lesson on Prince Henry the Navigator, and then talks all about the advances in geography and navigation Prince Henry helped create. It was amazing for that unit, and I’ll be pulling it out again in a few weeks when we dig into Pizarro, Cortez, and Magellan, and then again when we cover ancient history in a few years, but it’s not great for modern world geography, which is what I’m looking for with this hands on world geography unit. Seriously, though, if you are doing any sort of in-depth history study, get this book. It has some of the coolest hands-on activities that I can’t wait to cycle back and cover again.
Completely unrelated to this post, but I was poking around on RainbowResource.com’s youtube channel and found this video “What is Social Studies?” which I thought was interesting.
Do you agree with their idea of what social studies is?
Just a bit more for who RainbowResource.com is
Let me tell you a bit about RainbowResource.com if you don’t know who they are, they are the ULTIMATE homeschool shopping experience. I’ve been shopping with them from time to time since I was teaching (yes before I homeschooled, even teachers drool over this stuff). Homeschool moms are known to drool over the catalog like some women do over fashion catalogs.
Just like Amazon you will get free shipping if you order over $50, and like I mentioned earlier they frequently beat Amazon with their prices. It’s shipped media mail, so don’t use that option if you need your stuff fast, but if you’re planning ahead then you can easily deal with that.
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