How to Study Geography and Really Love It!
Wait. What? Isn't geography boring? No way, San Jose!
This year we're making it our goal to not only be familiar with the continents and their contents, but to really know where countries are, their topography, flora, fauna, people groups, and how all of those things fit together to compel us to love the Creator and the world He made.
This post contains affiliate links to Bright Ideas Press, because if you didn't already know, I'm kind of a BIP fanatic.
3 Important Steps to Loving Geography
1. Choose a great text to use as a springboard.
Operative word: springboard. A good text should serve as a skeleton for the homeschool teacher and student. The bones, as it were. From there, you can fill in, go off on wonderful and interesting tangents, create projects, travel, watch great movies that highlight geography, and a host of other activities that get kids excited about the world.
When things begin to drag, drop the text.
We're using Bright Idea Press's North Star Geography as our text this year. It's geared toward junior high and high schoolers, but guess what? I'm using it with my 6th and 3rd graders. How does that work? I'll let you know in my next post.
2. Think about the world in terms that don't center on your country.
Americans are particularly bad about this. The world doesn't actually revolve around the United States of America, and the way things are done here is not the only or best way. Embrace the attitudes, cultural norms, and customs of other countries and I bet you'll enjoy your studies a lot more.
Be careful, though. Giving your kids a love for other nations just might make them want to go there.
Our daughter and her French sister, visiting Castle Chambord, France
3. Make your study less about study and more about life.
Who wants to just study a text book about places? That's a sure-fire way to make everyone hate geography. Instead, incorporate places and people groups and stories into your every day conversations, and dream about where you'd like to go or what you'd like to see.
In my third planned upcoming post about studying geography, I'll give some hands-on ideas and resources, just to get you thinking and going and loving geography!
