I am bouncing up and down in my chair right now...thankfully you are being spared that visual. But, I am that excited about this next Review. The past few weeks we have been using Let's Go Geography with Kaden. I have been improvising and doing a Geography curriculum for both Mahala and Kaden, but it has required a lot of tweaking for Kaden to be able to join. And this has made a lot of extra work for Mom. :( But, let me tell you how we have been using this new curriculum from Let's Go Geography.
Let me tell you how we used it...once we logged into the home page we are brought to the main page that has a glance at the whole year to the left along with some helpful instruction, internet safety suggestions and a place for technical help. You can choose to skip around, you don't have to go in order. There is a handy box you click once you are finished a lesson so you can keep track of where on earth you have been. We decided to just go with the flow and not skip around. Once a week I also get a helpful email reminder with information for the upcoming location we will be studying next. I love this because it helps me prepare.
So what does a lesson look like? With each lesson you have a nice cover you can print with the country's name for your travel journal. We used a plain notebook and to save paper and ink we just wrote out the name. I like the little message from the Author reminding us to not feel stressed out trying to complete every single activity. We then get a brief overview of our destination location, population, language and so forth. Then there is the itinerary that has a check off list Map, Flag, Music, Explore and Color or Craft. Same schedule every week is great for me and Kaden. I love the list of supplies needed and additional book information we can locate in the library along with even the call# so we can find it easily.
Map work had Kaden finding the different countries, coloring them on a map, locating bodies of water and identifying countries and continents surrounding the place we were studying. This was great for him because he was able to use several maps and his globe to understand how close or far we were to these new places. Also, this was a great practice using his compass skills.
Flag work offers many small flags that can be printed for 1 or multiple children to color in and place in the passport. We decided to work on his motor skills even more and he drew small flags and then pasted them to the correct continent in his travel notebook.
The Music portion was cool because we got to here their national anthem and some of the countries we looked up additional music on our own. We like listening to traditional songs compared to modern music in some of the countries. Also, we were able to find the countries alphabet song in almost all of the countries we have learned about so far, including Hawaii's special alphabet. :)
The Explore section is filled with clip art, actual pictures, facts and links. You will go through the landscape, the people, customs and traditions. Holidays and agriculture and even economy, this Exploring is filled with exciting video choices and you can tumble down many rabbit holes. I love this, we learned about transportation on our own while learning about Hawaii because Kaden's interest was sparked when he realized the actual location. Most maps tuck Hawaii close to California to get it on the page, he was shocked how far out in the ocean it actually was.
There are extra ideas like journaling and photo albums with the pictures from the study, you could also use magazines like us. I have some travel magazines and other magazines that offer lots of photo options.
Each week offers a Color page and Craft idea. Kaden did a few color pages, but would rather complete the crafts. He has made a light house, sea turtle puppet, a flower lei, a Canadian maple leaf print and a crayon project from Haiti.
Wow, that was a lot...but there is a lot. I loved this program for Geography because it offered many hands on activities along with educational video links to make all the information and facts stick. I think this is a terrific way to get your kids introduced to the world around them and across the pond. I appreciated how simple and well put together the program was. I didn't have to print out a ton of stuff. I knew exactly what we would be doing, what we needed and roughly how long it would take.
Kaden spent 2 days a week going through the videos, map work, writing and reading. Then on the 3rd day he did the color page and or craft. We still waited till the next week to start another country even though he honestly wanted to work ahead. But, I really didn't want him to burn out...he has done that before. I will be getting the other 2 years to do with him for sure. There are different plans to get this into your homeschool. I think for any family with kids in grades K-4 will greatly benefit. I think you could probably do this along side of an older siblings Geography program since you can skip around. I may actually try that for some of the countries coming up.
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