Lots of ideas to help child learn basic geography.
It's a known fact that children absorb and retain information best when they are involved in a fun activity. Traditional geography lessons usually consist of labeling maps and writing reports. Not exactly stimulating activities. Here are 5 suggestions to bring geography alive for your child or classroom.
1. Have your class spend one week totally immersed in the culture of the peoples you are studying. Practice customs, celebrate a holiday, speak the language for one week. At the end of the week serve foods typical for the
country.
2. Buy a wall sized map and glue it to a firm surface such as wood or hard foam. Hang the map on the wall. Give the kids blunt darts and have them stand about 6 feet away from the map. On their turn, each child throws a dart at the map. They then have name the location and tell you three things about it. If they succeed, they go to the end of the line. If they fail, they are then out.
3. Bake cookies in the shape of various countries and continents. Have a continent party.
4. Create trivia cards with questions from the country you are currently studying. Divide the questions into Easy, Medium, and Hard. The children must answer 3 questions correctly in the Easy level before moving to the Medium level.. If they answer a question incorrectly, they go back to the Easy level. The first child to
answer all 3 Hard questions is the winner.
5. Ask the children to draw a map of their own. They can place continents and oceans where ever they want. Then have the kids draw in countries, lakes, rivers, mountains, any type of land form they want. Finally, the kids should write or tell a story about the people who live in each county. What do they eat? Why? What kind of work do they do? Why? What language do they speak and where did it come from?
