My goal this year is simply for the younger two to learn the continents and for the older children to learn the names and positions of all the countries in Europe. In addition, I will be doing a short lesson on how geography influenced the crusades. This is the first time I’ve had specific geographical goals for our homeschool.
- The little ones will be using a variety of children’s atlas’ and puzzle maps:
- We will have a geography quest. This is an idea I gleaned from Heather at Blogshewrote. It will probably be a simple find a country on the globe or world map quest, but it’s a start. We have covered our table in a map of the world protector cloth, which we will use. This is useful because the world map is repeated three times across the stretch of our table so all the children can work on the quest at the same time:
- The children will be completing the European puzzle once each:
- We will play Mapominoes: Europe as a family
- We have also bought in a new to us game called 10 days in Europe which we the children have really enjoyed:
- We have been enjoying Atlas Adventures for years and even my five-year old enjoys it:
- I will allow all the children time on Google Earth to explore Europe
- The children will play the games available on this website. They include dragging European countries onto a map of Europe. The games get progressively more difficult.
- This year they will be required to write a report and give a presentation of a European country of their choice. I’m hoping they will learn not just from their own report but also from their siblings. This is something completely new to us, but should be fun!
- Geofood – Food for the day to hint at the country; a tortilla in shape of a European country or a meal from that country.
- We are currently making one of our paper mache maps of Europe so we will be able to be able to visualise where all the crusades took place. Here is the one we did to show Marco Polo’s journey to China:
And here is the one of the UK we made whilst we were learning about the Vikings:
Hopefully, by next summer, we will be European connoisseurs!
It’s really interesting to see how you’re tying your geography study with your study of the crusades. I love all the resources that you’re using. They’re always so good!
Thanks Hwee!
These are really useful ideas. I love the tablecloth too.
Your paper mache maps are fantastic.
Pinning this for future reference.
Have you seen Seterra? It is a free, on line geography quiz. I know there is one of European countries and, I think, of flags and capitals. One of my children likes to play against me and after a few tries can usually win.
Thanks for the heads up re Seterra. I’ll google it and see what I can find!
Great ideas! Our family LOVES geography, especially my eldest. He knows EVERY flag of EVERY country. He also knows where all the countries are located on a map. All self-taught. I can’t take any credit. Lol
Love your idea of the map tablecloth…gotta find one of those!
I’ve never done much flag stuff so I’m not sure how my guys would fair. Not very well me thinks! We love our table cloth too!
What fun ideas for geography – thanks for sharing!
My pleasure
Fabulous ideas 🙂 I think I need to file these away for future reference!
Thanks Debbie!
hi,claire we are in Israel.xoxoxoxo
So pleased. We’ll continue praying for many, many blessing for you all.
Once again, I love all the hands-on learning – especially puzzles and games. We have worked our way across the United States learning about each state and now we are learning, in more detail, about European countries. Thanks for sharing the resources.
Enjoy your day, Claire.
If you’ve got other resources I hope you’ll share? Geography is not a strength of mine, so the children and I are very much learning together.
What a helpful post – thank you so much for taking the time to list all your resources. I especially love the map tablecloth – I want one!! Looking forward to hearing more about your geography adventures 🙂
Hopefully we might actually get round to having some geography adventures to share! It’s not my strong point!
Those games look great! I’m going to have to see what I can find around here. And the kids paper mache maps are just incredible!
Thank you! We’re not really a gaming family, but we do enjoy the geography games!
Love the maps! What a fun way to really learn geography!
Thanks Amber!
I got in fits and spurts of doing well with geography. Back when the kids were younger we did loads with US geography, but it’s somewhat fallen by the wayside for us, and I want to get back into it.
We’re the same. It seems to happen without much input from me, though!