Because I hear a lot of TOG moms ask how to teach geography, I thought I'd share what I've done over the years, especially now that we use TOG.  Geography is incredibly important to me, though it can be as dry as the Sahara Desert.  Therefore I try to make it interesting. For some reason, my parents gave me geography flash cards for Christmas when I was in second grade.  From them I actually memorized all of the states and capitals and the countries and their capitals, along with which continent they went with.  Then they gave me a globe another Christmas, when I was in the fourth grade. This was neat as it had a little disc at the top, which helped you figure out what the time was around the world. I used this all the time when my dad was later stationed in Korea for a year. I learned about the International Date Line, and a little about latitude and longitude. When I read books about locations that were new to me, I looked them up. It was a terrific way to travel around the world, while I was growing up in San Antonio. Where was the National Geography Bee when I was growing up? 

     My daughter took after me.  That might not seem surprising, but it is to me, because she grew up with a lot of developmental delays. She needed me to hold her hand through every single school subject, except for geography. She always "got" that! I was especially impressed when we moved from Wichita Falls, Texas to San Antonio when she was seven.  After a month of driving around the city, she knew exactly where we were. That's saying a lot, because San Antonio is seventh largest city in America. 

     My son on the other hand...well let's just say his strengths lie more in deep thinking and art.  However he is getting better and I am proud of him. 

     When my daughter was in kindergarten and my son was three (he insisted on joining us for school), I made giant map bulletin boards.  Instead of being seriously realistic, they were cute primary maps.  I did not want them to be too detailed, overwhelming my kids. I simply wanted basic maps: a world map showing the countries in different colors and an American map showing the states in different colors. Whenever we read about a place, we'd put a push pin there to mark the location.  When we watched the Olympics we'd watch the countries' athletes march in and find them on the globe.

     Can you see the world map behind them? That's the only picture I can find.  It's a panel of primary colored fabric I had purchased from Wal Mart.

    Over my daughter's shoulder, you can see the colorful USA map. It was just a colorful poster I liked at the teacher supply store.

    For Christmas one year, my brother gave my daughter a globe with a special pen so that you can play games, identifying locations on the globe.  We all enjoyed that. Over the years my daughter collected various geography games as gifts, which were always her vote for game time.        

     In our beginning years of homeschooling, we used the A Beka curriculum. By fourth grade incredible 8x10 colorful flash cards are used to learn countries.  Even though we now use TOG, my kids won't let me get rid of the flashcards because they are helpful to them in their studies.  My daughter used A Beka through 6th grade and my son through 4th grade, so they got a bit of geography with the history books.

     We took our first big vacation when they were 11 and 8. While traveling from Texas to Virginia, then through Virginia to see lots of historical sites, then to New York for a visit, then back to Virginia for more sites, then back to Texas, I knew there was no way that I could endure the classical question of yore, "W-h-e-r-e a-r-e w-e?"  To head off the questions, I purchased children's road atlases for them, and marked the route with a highlighter.  They learned a lot about map reading skills on that trip. Every trip since, they expected to have the route marked for them to follow. Now that we live near Washington DC, I cannot tell you how many times I've missed a turn, gotten stuck in traffic on the wrong highway, and they came to the rescue by reading the area map to try to get me rerouted.  It takes them a while and some coaching from me, but when stuck in traffic, there is a bit of time for that.  

     When we started TOG when they were 13 and 10, I was pleased to see that geography was included in the curriculum. What better way to learn geography, than to do a weekly map on the weekly historic themes studied, while reading a literature book of the same historical thread.  Everything comes together and makes for a richer experience. Historical geography has more practicality and meaning.  This enriched my daughter's strong geography skills, while this struck a spark of interest in my son for the first time.   

     There are various things that we do with geography during our TOG studies. Some I came up with myself and some come from other sources. My kids have made pizza, that is shaped like geographical features. They have made salt dough maps. 

They've made overlay maps.

 I will do separate blog entries on those and link them here.  What I'd like to focus on though, is how we do the weekly map work in TOG.

      Although it is recommended that my kids find required locations for the week in a historical atlas and then write them on their paper maps, I do not have my kids do this. In short, I give them the answer key and merely have them copy the answer key. (gasp) Why do I do that????????? I'm glad you asked! ;)

     Actually, we did try to find the places in atlases and on line in the beginning. We began TOG with Y1U1, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia.  Hours later we found a couple of locations out of several we were required to label on the map. Where were these ancient places????  We were frustrated.  I spent some time weighing the cost/benefit analysis of this. My kids were already busy with reading several pages from real books about history, answering accountability and thinking questions for our weekly Socratic Discussions, writing a paper on the week's topic, on top of their other school work. Why spend hours to find a handful of locations that no longer exist? Some of the locations weren't even in our reading, so we had never heard of some of the places that no longer exist.  Therefore, I devised a new plan of attack.

      I decided that I wanted the kids to spend the bulk of their TOG time in the activities that would do the best and the most to develop their brains and understanding of history. These activities were reading, thinking, discussing and writing. I wanted them to spend time in their literature. I wanted them to have some free time to enjoy art projects of the era. I did want them to learn geography, but I wanted it to be in perspective. I marked the locations that were historically relavent and part of their reading assignments. I gave them their paper maps and had them copy the locations from my answer key. 

     Although I'd like them to neatly color the maps, whenever I have them color them it is sheer torture for all of us.  They were never the types to enjoy coloring books when they were little. They have always preferred to create their own stuff with raw materials. I decided I'd much rather they pour that coloring potential into making mosaics and freizes. My son has made a Spartan costume and swords for his other characters. My daughter enjoys making historically appropriate jewelry. In the big picture, those types of activities are more important to me.  Therefore, their maps go uncolored.

     Instead of researching locations, I quiz them on locations. Each week I print out extra maps for our weekly TOG history topic.  For the quiz, I make a list of relevant locations I want them to locate on the map.  They take their quizzes at the end of the TOG week. I like this because they still learn the historical locations, their time is wisely used, and I have a grade to record!

     Over the TOG years, we have collected various historical atlases from the used book stores, to enhance our studies. When reading about an interesting location, they look it up on their own. To me that is more exciting to see as a teacher, then something that is assigned.  

     Does this work? I think so. My kids have competed well in the local level for the National Geography Bee.  While specifically preparing for the Bee, my kids like to play the geography game at the previously linked site. I've also collected preparation books for the bee, which the kids study.      If it were not for my daughter's developmental delays, I think she would have easily progressed to state and even nationals.  Over the years of competition, she has been complimented for her growing sense of composure. For that I am extremely pleased!  In 2007 she placed second and my son placed third. In 2008 she placed third and my son won! That was my daughter's final year of eligibility to compete.

In 2009 my son won again!