Posted in Reviews

We used Galloping the Globe, a geography unit study program written for grades K-4 by Loree' Pettit and Dari Mullins, this past year as the spine for our kindergarten studies.  It was a fabulous resource for our first year of homeschooling and I'm extremely pleased that we ended up using it.

Galloping the Globe (commonly referred to as GtG) is neither a workbook nor a consumable text.  It is series of unit studies organized by continent focusing on a selection of countries from around the globe.  The book contains lists of suggested materials, organized by subject, and reproducible pages of word games, puzzles, flags, maps, and other relevant items suitable for notebooking. 

The subjects suggested for each country vary, but usually include general overview materials, biographies, literature selections from or about the country, science suggestions (often animal based, or habitat oriented), internet resources, and additional cultural activities like recipes, maps, flags, and poems.  The countries studied are selective - it would be impossible to study every country in the world - but fairly representational.

In addition, there is a Yahoo Group that provides a lively forum for discussion and information sharing as it relates to using this study.

GtG does have a bundle of supporting materials that is available to go with it.  However, this is, by far, not all that you need to successfully complete the program.  To provide the variety of materials for the history, literature, and other aspects on each country, your local library will be your primary source for materials.

As a teacher, what I particularly liked is the guidance of the text as we began our studies.  I had proven suggestions at hand for what to use to cover the culture, history, and geography of the country we were studying.  I liked the literature suggestions best - we found some absolute gems through using this text in books I might not have bothered to look at without this recommendation!

Also, once you've worked through a few countries, you start to get the feel for how a unit study is put together.  Indeed, many users of the program have created their own country units for countries not covered in the text.  We eventually did a unit on Sweden and found it just as much fun to create and do as a pre-made unit! 

My daughter found all of the literature-rich options so enticing!  And the activities suggested by the book were a big hit as well.  Her favorite country that we studied was China - I'm not sure why, but it probably had to do with the Chinese crafts we did, building the Great Wall of China from Legos, and the wonderful books. 

I've encountered several folks who have been interested in combining GtG with another geography or history program.  GtG is, in large part, what you make of it in your homeschool.  On its own merits, GtG would be sufficiantly "meaty" to use with students in its intended age range, and maybe slightly beyond with age appropriate additions.

As a companion to a four-year classical rotation, I think GtG might be difficult to work with because of its contemporary cultural and geographical focus.  Certainly, some of the countries covered in the ancient and medieval classical studies are included in GtG, but bridging the time period between, for example, medieval England and modern England are several hundred years, simply packed with history no less.  And, including history that will be covered later in the classical rotation. 

We chose, instead, to use our GtG studies as an introduction to basic map-reading, geography, and cultural awareness.  The history studies we saved until we could really dig into them at a later time.

Overall, we found it to be a highly satisfying program to work through.  I strongly recommend it for new homeschoolers as an excellent program to begin with.