Our School Plan: Geography

This year my older boys will be studying the United States for geography. Our history studies will finally be entering into US history, so this should coincide nicely. I'm not going to have them go too in-depth, but enough for an overview of each state. I'll have them study two states per week, in order of entry into the union. Their books will be set up in alphabetical order.

I added patriotic scrapbook paper to dress up our boring binders.

In order to save time (and mental energy), I found my state sheets from a unit study on CurrClick called: 50 Days of 50 States. This is a great unit study and it has multiple pages for all 50 states. I only used two pages per state, which I think will be enough to keep my boys busy.

The boys will be completing these sheets after reading some books together:
* Quilt of States by Adrienne Yorinks
* United Tweets of America by Hudson Talbot
* The Discover America State by State Series (by Sleeping Bear Press)

Additionally, they will be doing map drills, which will first involve reviewing the continents and oceans, and then learning where all our states are. Each week the boys will be learning about two states. Then, once a week, I'll have the boys fill in blank maps where they will gradually remember where all the states are. Our blank maps are from New World Blackline Maps (13 colonies map) and Modern Blackline Maps (current US map). This is the first time we'll be doing this, so I'm hoping for some success. Then, next year we can venture into more continents.

If all goes well with our first term scheduling, I may add in a geography read-aloud later. I'm trying not to overwhelm my schedule too much so we can have a good start to the year. I have a tendency to do too much, and then our schedule falls apart. If I can find a good copy, I'll add in A Child's Geography of the World by V.M. Hillyer. Otherwise, I might add in a Holling C. Holling book, like Paddle to the Sea.