The first week of each school year, TOG recommends reviewing geography terms.  I found a great site where one can make colorfully picturesque  flashcards. I printed these out and then laminated them.  

     While my kids were learning these in our first year of TOG several years ago (that translates into no pictures; that was my personal era before owning a digital camera), I was making homemade pizza for lunch. Before I tell you my crazy idea, perhaps I should relate a bit of history. Ever since my kids were quite young, I'd let them play with the dough and make their own pizza.  Because my son was diagnosed FTT (failure to thrive) at age 9 months and had fallen off the growth chart for weight, I was always looking for ideas to entice him to eat.  Letting him play with his food in a productive way, I hoped, would be the perfect enticement. Therefore I looked for ways to have him help in the kitchen. Furthermore both of my kids had Sensory Integration Disorder issues,  so I was always on the lookout for texture activities. Well, I felt as though I hit paydirt when I realized I could achieve even schoolwork (geography terms) with pizza dough!  Hence my crazy idea for pizza dough geography!

     I called the kids down and told them we were having pizza for lunch and they could make their own. I heard rousing cheers from the two young ones.  However, first I wanted them to  use the dough to review their geography flashcards, which were still sitting untouched in the school basket.  They looked at me as though they knew Mom had definitely lost it this time.  But game as always, they ran upstairs to get the cards while I portioned out the dough and an area for them to work. We looked at each card and discussed each feature while they duplicated each geographical shape with their dough.  Because these cards were actually review from a previous curriculum and preparation for previous geography bees, it was truely a review and we easily got through all the cards. For students newer to the terms, these could easily be done a few at a time, through the course of the year.  There is truely no need to master every term the first week of school.  

     When each of the terms were finished, I told the kids to now make their pizza and I got the homemade sauce, grated mozarella cheese and pepperoni ready. I assumed my kids would make the usual circles/ovals for their pizza. Oh no!  They made geography pizza!  They decided to now shape their pizza into their favorite geographical shape!  Giggles ensued while creating their masterpieces. My daughter made an atoll pizza, whereas my son made a barrier reef pizza.  They told me those were the best pizzas they had ever eaten!  

     Salt dough maps are a great way to teach geography. I have heard from many about dough that never dries. Thankfully, that has never been a problem for us.  First I mix the dry ingredients (2 cups flour and 1/2 cup salt), then add just enough water to make a moist, pliable dough.  Look for consistency similar to homemade bread or pizza dough...not too wet nor too dry. Knead the map dough until smooth.

    In preparation for salt dough map projects, I collect cardboards from old boxes of various sizes.  I usually print out a map and glue it onto the cardboard. Then I give each of the kids dough for them to start shaping on top of the land areas.  They leave the water areas alone. From their studies and a bit of research on topography, they use more dough for mountains and less for valleys. They don't need to get too scientific with this.  I prefer they get  general idea.  While the dough is damp, it is best to poke the necessary spots with a small metal skewer for labeling later.  If the project must be put aside for awhile, that is fine. We put the dough in a ziplock bag and seal it until its next use.  When the land forms are completed, we set it aside to dry and store the remaining dough in a ziplock bag and place in the freezer until the next project.

     The dough usually air dries in a day.  Then the kids paint the landforms: blue for water, green or brown for land, white for snow. When done, they cut out bits of construction paper to write names of locations. These are glued to toothpicks and then the tips are dipped in glue and placed in the premade holes for labeling.

     I must confess, sometimes we'd forget to premake the holes for labeling. Then I'd get a small nail and gently tap the proper locations for the toothpicks. This always created cracks in the land. That is okay and might even be worthy to do on purpose, allowing the cracks to represent fault lines since the earth is actually covered with fissures!   A few years ago we watched an interesting IMAX movie on earthquakes which sort of drove home the point.     

     My kids made lots of maps throughout their first year studying TOG. That was the year we studied Ancient history. They made maps of every continent. Here are some of them.

Ancient Egypt (my daughter's is on the left; my son's is on the right)...

 Ancient India (my son's is on the left; my daughter's is on the right)...

Ancient China (my daughter's is on the left; my son's is on the right)...

 North and South America (while studying the Ancient Mayans)

Ancient Greece (my daughter's is on the left; my son's is on the right)...

Ancient Rome (my son's)...

Ancient Rome (my daughter's)...

     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!  

Congratulations to my son for winning the 2009 local Geography Bee!

The medal actually comes from the National Geography Bee in Washington DC.  At the link is a quiz for you to see where you stand!  ;)

The local contests are competed in individual schools.  Because he is homeschooled, he competed with area homeschoolers from our city. 

     Since he won the school level competition, he got to stay and take a written test.  The winner from each school takes this 70 question test to qualify for the state competition in April. The best are chosen.  He won last year too, but did not qualify for state.  This year he thinks he did better on the written exam.  I told him that makes sense.  He's had another year to learn more geography and he now has experience under his belt.  =)  We'll know in March whether he qualifies for state. The winner of the state competition goes on to Washington DC in May. 

     This year my daughter, the real geography expert of the family, was too old to compete.  She has a lot of high school work and is trying to finish The Scarlet Letter.  I had costumes to sew for our next unit celebration  in 2 weeks.  My husband retired from the USAF last week and has been bored out of his gourd in between looking for companies to send his resume to.  So I asked him if he'd take our son to the competition.  I am usually a nervous wreck at the competition.  This year I was a wreck at home!  

     When the guys left, I asked them to tell me everything when they got back. But now they can only remember bits and pieces of a couple of the questions. It's okay. I can't share the questions anyway on the blog until all the schools complete the bees.  However I was intensely curious as to how they matched up with our studies.

     Usually we celebrate by going to my son's favorite restaurant, Red Lobster. Since my husband is job searching, we are cutting back on our budget.  But we did have grilled steak, fully loaded baked potatoes, spinach salad with feta cheese and kalamata olives, and sauteed mushrooms.  For dessert we had chocolate satin pie!  The steak dinner was originally to celebrate my husband's retirement last week, but his mom kept taking us out to eat. We were going places everyday and I was so tired when we were at home.  So it made a nice celebration dinner for the bee.  It was still pretty special and sooooo much cheaper than eating out! To further celebrate, my son asked if we could watch a movie, even though it is a school night.  Wellll, I relented and he got a big grin and picked "Homeward Bound."  

     In the meantime, my husband said he got a phone call from the Pentagon while he was at the Bee.  He had interviewed with them on Christmas Eve and that has been the only nibble.  He has run into so many closed doors here in Texas, even at the military bases.  Unfortunately, the cell phone was off and by the time he saw the message, the guy had gone home.  So we'll probably have a sleepless night while awaiting our fate.  

     When we studied the Great Flood, we learned about mountain building and the massive erosion that created river beds, piles of fossils crushed into each other and covered with mud, huge canyons, etc.  We decided to do overlays on the major geographical features of today that probably resulted from the Great Flood.

     We started with a base map of the world. This can be printed on paper or cardstock, although I didn't realize that and printed it on a transparency.  When I did that, I realized I needed a paper backing of some sort so it would stand out. 

Then we got a fresh transparancy, hole punched that and added that to the 3 ring binder, on top of the base map.  The dc colored with a yellow sharpie, the deserts of the world. Then on a piece of yellow paper (lower left corner) they numbered and listed the major deserts.  Then they were numbered in black on the transparency (so they could all fit.)   The dc glued the yellow paper with the key to the desert information onto the transparency in a place where it would not be in the way of any information.

The next layer is for the mountains.  They used a brown piece of paper to list the major mountains of the world.  Then they used a brown sharpie to number these locations on the map. They could have even drawn some upside down v's for mountains.  I think they didnt' do that because there were already some on the base map that I used.

The next layer is for the rivers.  They used a blue piece of paper, with a list of the major rivers.  Then with a blue sharpie, they drew in the rivers and numbered them.

The final layer was for the Oceans.  For these they did not use any color coded paper.  You see a blue paper but that is the one for rivers showing from underneath.  For this layer they took a dark blue sharpie and wrote in the names of the oceans.

For our resource we used A Beka's 5th grade history text, Old World History and Geography.