Ok, so I was a geography minor in college. Geography education, even. One of my biggest fears in homeschooling was going overboard on my best (and favorite) topics. I kept telling myself that I would back off before forcing the kids to learn calculus before cursive and know the capitals of Europe before their address. (I was a math ed major…)
I’d like to think we have somewhat succeeded. We’ve kept Geography fun. What we’ve done is kept it limited to what the kids can relate to. When they are little, geography involves their world, the world they know. We draw maps of the house. We go from room to room on a big exploration. We draw treasure maps of the backyard and follow them. This is their world and this is what means something to them.
A few years down the road they learn that they are part of a bigger community. We walk around the neighborhood. We learn street names and addresses. We draw maps to the park, the grocery store, and church. We learn that we live in a state and a city. They are fascinated by the big maps we have on the wall and want to know what it means. Our 4 year old is on a state kick. He has the state of Missouri figured out. He can pick it out on a map of the United States, even if we change the color or puzzle size on him. I can’t resist the fun US and world puzzles when it comes to learning. You find where New Jersey goes often enough you start learning where it is. One of my learning philosophies is that you surround your family with learning materials of all sorts, and use them yourself, your kids will follow your example and love to learn.
We’ve moved a lot. Our extended family is spread across the country. When we take trips to visit family or on one of our moves, we’ve printed up maps and traced our route for the kids. (this also introduces scale in a BIG way when it takes hours to cross one little stretch of road on the paper…) Our kids have been born in different states and cities, so they want to see on a map where they were born. We look for where grandparents, uncles and aunts, and friends live. Not too long ago we had friends move to New Zealand. This led to a renewed interest in the whole world! It really means something when someone the kids know goes there.
To a lesser extent, the characters in books, movies, and shows also bring the world a little closer to home as they look up where things happened (or where they were filmed.) Even with fantasy stories that happen far away or in an imaginary place, these stories include maps that also need a little bit of knowledge about geography.
They get a bit older and start paying attention to history. We look up where things happened and how they relate to today. We see political and physical features on the maps and how boundaries might form between peoples. This brings us into current events. They start paying attention to what is happening in the world today and how it affects them, and the world gets a little smaller. Japan. New Zealand. Chile. Libya. Haiti. And of course, much, much more.
Without shoving geography down my kids’ throats, we’ve somehow kept it interesting and fun (I think!) and have kids that were even confident enough in their geography skills to make it to the second round of our local Geography Bee. I think we’re meeting our goals and having fun while doing it, which is one of the best things about learning together.
Tabitha
(wife to Tom, homeschooling mom to 8 kids ages 14 to 1, learning something new all the time)
I too grew up with maps all over the house. My father is a map addict and when he would take me to work, I would stare at this wall-sized map he had of Dallas, where I grew up. It had every street on it and you could plot your route anywhere in town with it. It was my local “Google Map”. I still love maps today because of it. Anytime we go anywhere, I am the person who plots our path. I completely agree with you that Geography is fun!
Geography is fun when we make it relevant to our kids- personalize the experience, which is exactly what you’re doing. I think my daughter will be a map junkie. On our cross-country move she helped us “navigate” and kept asking for the atlas. It’s a good thing indeed when our kids love to explore geography!
I love geography too! It sounds like you do a great job of balancing it with your kids interests and other subjects!
my husband travels a lot for his job, so we love geography! It helps when we learn where he’s going – so there is an interest to find out about the place! Especially when he has to drink stuff like scorpion tea … CHECK PLEASE!!