Geography Plans

Heather asked how I decided about our Geography Study.

As I thought through what we were going to do this year before starting our History rotation next year, I thought having an idea of the world and where places were would be a good idea.  Last summer we had a school “dry run” where we studied Ohio, the United States, Canada, and Mexico … North America. 

When we started this year, we moved on to Central America.  In February, we’ll study South America, then Europe, Asia, The Middle East, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia.  I plan/hope to be done with our Geography Study mid-August. 

The first week of any continent/region will be studying the area as a whole.  Then I chose 2 to 5 countries to focus on for a week or so at a time.  I chose those countries in several ways; 1) places where I or someone I know have gone and have personal resources (My parents & I have been to Honduras, my parents have been through the Panama Canal, my SIL spent a year in Chile, etc.), 2) countries that are important based on land-mass or economics of the region (Panama because of the canal, Brazil, Russia which spans two continents, etc.), 3) countries that are important to history/western civ/development of the US (Egypt, Israel, UK, France), and 4) countries that are representative of a continent or region and there are library resources available (South Africa, Kenya).

Hope that helps!