I confess - I'm a geography lover!  I was one of those kids in school who just loved the colored pencils and crayons and I couldn't wait for Social Studies when it would be time to color in our maps.    I loved it then and I love it now.   And yes, it drives me nuts when people don't know their basic geography.    I'm a firm believer that everyone should at least know where the states are located in our great country!

This year, we are using Trail Guides to Geography from Geography Matters.  It's fairly new curriculum (I personally just discovered it right before we started this year).   There are 3 books - Trail Guides to Bible Geography; World Geography and US Geography.  

Normally we just blend geography with whatever history we are doing.  We are using TOG (Tapestry of Grace) Y1, so the TG to Bible Geography goes really well.   TOG does provide geography but since this is our first year anyway with TOG, we all found it a little overwhelming and much of it is the same so I decided to just have the children focus on the Trail Guide.   

So far, we have followed Abraham to Egypt and will continue to follow him to Hebron.  We will cover Issac, Jacob, Joseph and on through Moses.  We'll cover the 12 Tribes, Saul, David and Solomon as well as Assyria, Babylon, Persia and The Maccabees.

The curriculua is written in different levels for grades 2nd - high school.  There are 4 days to a week which gives you an extra day to catch up or take a day off.   Each day has 3-4 questions to answer (only 1-2 per grade level) along with mapping activities and trail blazing activities.   Trail blazing activities are anything from writing assignments, looking up things online, to making salt dough maps!  These are pick and choose activities, not all of them have to be done but it's hard to decide which ones not to do as they are all very interesting and fun activities.    Also there is a notebook to keep that includes keeping information on everything from animals, plants, gemstones, flags, and more.   Of course depending on which course you are working through at the time,  the activities, notebooking and mapping,  will be geared to that particular geographical region. 

If you are looking for a user friendly geography curriculum, I highly recommend these books!   It's very flexible and can easily be modified to your family's schedule. 

As I said in the beginning I love geography!   I do this with my children.   I have a set of maps myself and we all sit down to do this for family time.   Even my teenagers don't mind that mom joins in this one!