Geography is a subject that is often overlooked in schools today. I know when I was in school all we were taught were the continents, oceans, US States, we needed to know the major countries around the world and that was all. A handul of seas and other countries, maybe. My plan this year is to have more geographical items in our school room. We have maps, a globe, puzzles of the states and a puzzle of the world. We talk about individual countries as we do our studies but I want a little more. I want my kids- and I will be learning right along with them- to know where Guatemala, Nigeria and Romania are. Not just a vague- they are in Central America, Africa or Europe....but I want them to be able to point to it on a map,see it's place in the world. So my first step was to make and add this to our shelf:

I got the printable from a free Montessori resources website- I would love to share it and credit the person who made it, but I don't remember where I downloaded it from. It was simple to make....just a printable map with the country borders shown. One blank and one labled. Then I cut out the names of all the countries, seas, and other noteworthy places and taped them onto straight pins to form flags. There are 26 flags. The control map is to help the boys be independent while working on this, and so their concentration isn't broken while waiting for me to come and help.  The map and flags are places onto a corkboard piece and the control map is free beside them.

ETA I found it....this map is from Polestar Montessori they have a N. America and a World map available to download.