Geography at Home: 5 Tools You Need to Teach Geography
We hear statistics all the time about how people on the street are asked simple geography questions and not able to answer them correctly. We certainly don’t want our homeschoolers to be part of those statistics. With the right tools, any child can learn a lot about the world around him and how it works. These are the tools you need to teach geography at school from home:
1. When you hear about countries or places that you have not heard of before, when you listen to the news, read stories or just listen to others talk, get a good map and find that place with your children. There is no reason to ignore other places in the world when we have some of the best maps available in our country.
2. When you go on a trip, let your child plan the route and find interesting places along the way. Ask them to keep track of how many miles you drive. You can even do this for shorter trips in your area. This helps your child become more aware of the world around him.
3. Talk about geography terms. When you or your child come across new words like plateau, delta, or reservoir, find out what they mean. You might even find a picture of this geographic term to better understand the definition. Geography is not just about locating places. You can also explore statistics for a given area, photographs, and land type in your geography survey.
4. Use the Internet, software games, and even board games to teach geography. Games teach an enormous amount of knowledge, sometimes without the child knowing it. When there is competition, many children will do or learn anything to win. Games make learning fun. Use them once a week to spark a love of geography.
5. Get maps and geography tools like atlases and almanacs. Children always want to know where they are on a map. You can start there and point out where other family members live in relation to them. When you are reading a story about a distant country, look it up on the map so your children can see where it is in relation to where they live. If you take a long trip, when you return, show them how far in the world you traveled. This will give you a good understanding of how big our country is.
Take advantage of the many great resources and ideas and enjoy your exploration of geography. When you are interested in the world around you, your children will pick up on that interest.