Last year, for geography, we focused on the Americas. We mostly used outline maps, and Lu did learn all of the countries - north, central, south, and the Caribbean Islands - but, he didn't have as much fun with it as he is having this year.
We started European geography with Head of the Class. Lu really enjoys the short videos, and he's making a chart of each country's language, population, and flag. But then I remembered Sheppard Software's Free Geography Site, and gave it another go. Last year, Lu played with it a bit, but it didn't grab him like it has now. He was on it several times over the weekend, and has been on it every chance he gets these past two days. He learned all the capitals of Central and South America, and he's learned to locate all of the European countries.
I mix in some homemade quizzes.
Each continent has different levels and keeps your score. Lu will do one level several times because he insists on getting 100% at least five times in a row before moving on to the next level. He's kinda wacky like that.
He takes it very seriously and likes to challenge us to geography battles to show off his superior geography knowledge. Cha was much impressed when he saw Lu locating Slovakia and Slovenia in the blink of an eye. And the great thing is, I get to play and learn too!
It's an awesome site, I highly recommend it.
and you haven't done much world geography with your kids yet,
you might be thinking -
"OMG, that must have taken forever to memorize."
You will be surprised at how quickly they learn with this program.
Lu learned all of Europe in about 4 hours.
Thank you for the tip! We have Mapping the World by Heart (which we really must get back into...) and this would be a great addition!
ReplyDeleteThere was a lot of stuff on Head of the Class that we didn't care for, but the geography and history stuff was GREAT! We loved those parts. I LOVE maps and learning the countries, capitals, and facts. I used to make my parents crazy by insisting that they quiz me all the time. :)
ReplyDeleteDefinitely HotC math and language arts - full of mistakes, the format is yucky, and the little "good job" pop-ups are annoying. But ditto on the geography stuff - that and the human body videos.
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