Tag: Around the World

A Trip to Egypt

Tracy

During my blogging break, we covered Egypt in our geography study. There is so much to cover with this country! Picking and choosing what to study was a real challenge, but a fun challenge and a fun study. Our schedule for geography is pretty close to the same each week.

Week 1

Day 1: Stamp the passport with flag sticker; learn a new geography song; find our new country on the map and globe.

Day 2: Read from our atlas and talk about geography of our country; find our new geo terms in Geography from A to Z

Day 3: Color our country and mark the capital (and any other key features) on our notebooking page.

Day 4:  Read about the country’s flag and color our notebooking page.

Day 5: (Our Casual Friday) Watch a video, do a craft, read about the animals of the country, etc.

Week 2

Day 1: Discuss the spiritual needs of the country from Operation World website; pray for an unreached people group of that country.

Day 2: Read Children Just Like Me and complete notebooking page.

Day 3: Read Around the World in 80 Tales and any library books from on that country.

Day 4: Read a story of a missionary to that country.

Day 5: (Our Casual Friday) Spend the entire school time studying animals from that country and reviewing our animal classifications (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods).

For our Egypt study, I actually put Netflix to work. I have read on other people’s blogs how they love using Netflix for homeschool, and it gave me the idea to look for some Imax films for our geography study. Of course, Egypt was a good place to start. So we popped some popcorn and sat down to watch “The Mystery of the Nile.” I wasn’t sure how they would do with a film like this, but they absolutely loved it. It was the perfect casual Friday activity.

Nigeria, Part 2

Tracy

We’ve been wrapping our study in Nigeria, and I wanted to share a few of our highlights.

During the last part of our first week, we finished our country and flag notebooking pages.

Coloring the country of Nigeria

 

Coloring the Flag of Nigeria

 

In addition to learning where Nigeria is on a map, we studied their flag. The green represents the agriculture (“farming”) and the white stands for unity (“lots of different people coming together as one country”).

In week two, we cover culture and missions. In addition to our prayer cards, we read a couple of pages from Children Just Like Me and complete a notebooking page. For the little one, I have a fantastic sticker dolly dressing book from Usborne. The book features people from around the world with sticker clothing to match. The little one gets to find the outfit that fits the person from the country we are studying (with quite a bit of help, but it still intrigues her).

The countries don’t always match up with our study, but when we do get to pull out this activity, it’s a big hit.

Then, we finish our second week with a missionary story. This week, we read about Mary Slessor, a missionary to the cannibals of Africa (thankfully, the story was about her work with orphans, confronting the false belief in “evil spirits”, and showing the African women the truth of God).

I really appreciated the missionary book we read from, Ten Girls Who Changed the World. At the end of each short story, there is a little discussion section that ends with a sample prayer to pray. The discussion and prayer was about allowing God to use our personalities to serve Him, and boldly standing up for what is right.

Do they comprehend everything we cover? Probably not. But I’m a firm believer in over-estimating rather than under-estimating what they will pick up. And what I cover today is laying a foundation for covering the same concepts more thoroughly in the future.

Planning Geography: Our trip Around the World

Tracy10 Comments on Planning Geography: Our trip Around the World

I’ve been so excited (and overwhelmed) about planning our geography study this year. I wanted to get the kids familiar with basic geography before we head into Tapestry of Grace curriculum next year, and I wanted to emphasize missionaries and the need for missions.

But I couldn’t make my mind up between Expedition Earth and the lessons from HomeschoolCreations.com. In the end, I decided to morph the two together. Yes, there were moments when I wondered what was wrong with me. I can’t ever take the easy way, it seems. Always have to customize. But now that it’s in the works, I’m really excited, and it was totally worth it.

First, I looked at both plans and chose the countries they had in common. That worked out to about 3 per continent (5 for Europe). Next, I looked at the books they recommended. The ones that they both used, Children Just Like Me, for instance, were easy to decide on. But then, I had to look at where they were different and choose my favorites. Around the World in 80 Tales, recommended by HC, looked like so much fun and right on my kid’s age level. But both of them recommended atlases that were rather expensive. So I found a cheaper alternative to that with Usborne’s Essential Atlas of the World ($10.99 and available as a giveaway right now). Geography A to Z was an EE recommendation that, again, looked very appropriate for my kids learning level.

So, after I pieced together my countries and my booklist, I had the mounting task of how to merge the plans. And here’s where I again complicated my life. EE does each country in one week; HC takes about 8 days; I wanted two weeks. So here’s what I decided on: one week of geography, and one week of culture and missions.  Plus, EE comes with an animal study: six animals from each country that we study and their classifications. I love that we’ll be able to touch on some science on our trip around the world.

I hope you’ll join us in our journey this fall. I really am excited, not just about what we’ll learn, but about how the Lord will use this study in our lives.

Up next: tomorrow I’m blogging about our Art plans. Come see the fun!

Around the World

Tracy

Some of my fondest memories are of my mom reading to us at lunch time. And I’ve relished being able to do that with my children. So far, we’ve read Pooh’s Corner, Charlotte’s Web, and Freckle Juice. Now, we’ve embarked on a different adventure: Around the World in 80 Days.

My son has loved Phineas Fogg’s adventure, and I’m figuring it will be a great introduction to our geography that we will start in the fall. Once or twice a week, I make pigs in the blanket from weiners and Bisquick (our favorite lunch!) and round up the book and our accessories: the inflatable globe (so we can scope out how far he’s gone) and our colorful Geo cards (to get a better look at the countries he’s headed to).

We’ve had so much fun with our stories—practicing narration concepts, increasing our vocabulary, and creating all the warm, fuzzy memories that I’ve cherished from my homeschool days.