Geography

World’s Strangest….

October 20, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

There are times, dear readers, I wish you could be a fly on the wall when certain books come into the house. Normally my lad couldn’t really care as he knows I’ll tell him what I think once I’ve looked through them. BUT the books I have for you today grabbed his interest from the time they fell out of the package. Lonely Planet kids has four books in the series World’s Strangest. We have predators, ocean beasts, places and creepy-crawlies. Can you guess, dear readers, which one he gravitated to?

YES You are totally correct. Creepy-Crawlies is it. Why… well you know … ANTS. Ants were mentioned in a book AND they were ACCURATE!!! He was delighted and then found the quizzes… can I tell you something… IF YOU ARE TIRED>>> DO NOT LET YOU CHILDREN QUIZ you… unless you want them chortling with glee when you flub up. 🙂 It was okay though…I got him back later by quizzing him on Ocean beasts… which had him grabbing up the book and learning more for himself. FUN! Who wouldn’t want books like this in your house? 🙂

What you get:

Each book is laid out in the same manner. The Top 40 as ranked by Lonely Planet experts are talked about. Five strangest and then a quiz. Loads of colourful pictures and interesting tidbits. Each book closes with a glossary.

Let me walk you through

Each book is divided into four sections, each with their own quiz.

Each place or creature is given a two page spread with bright, highly engaging, full-colour images. Bold text to help draw in the eye.

As you can see, each place or creature comes with a strangeometer score. 40 creatures or places in each book. Each quiz asks 10 questions, not in the order they are presented in the book. The answers are provided upside down in fine print.

The books I received are:

Ocean beasts: weird and wonderful creatures from the deep
Places: weird and wonderful corners of the Earth
Predators: weird and wonderful carnivorous animals
Creepy-crawlies: weird and wonderful hair-raising bugs

Each one was a treasure trove of 40 places or animals that are just odd, interesting, or wonderful. Places like Christmas Island and the underwater post office. Animals such as the trumpetfish, leafy seadragon, or japanese spider crab. How about the cobra lily, trapdoor spider, exploding ant, or artic fox? Interesting and sometimes obscure facts are brought to light, sure to delight your children from age 6 and up.

My Thoughts:

In case you couldn’t tell, I really like these four books. I am tempted to use them to create small unit studies to help your student delve into the world’s strangest all the more. 🙂 (If only I could find the time). The bright images with factoids make these books a delightful addition to your science library. I urge you to check them out today.

World’s Strangest ocean beasts
World’s Strangest places
World’s Strangest predators
World’s Strangest creepy-crawlies

Lonely Planet Kids
80 pages, 6-8 years,
Science, Geography, Biology, Elementary

Country Study: Belgium

October 19, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

The lad and I are making our way through Europe and the Great War. Did you know that Germany attacked Belgium in order to attack France? Poor little Belgium, sitting in the way. Anyways, that led to Britain joining in the Battle, which of course led to all the nations connected to Britain joining in the battle as well. All because of how alliances played a role. This makes the attack on Belgium an important consideration in the overall war. It behooves the lad and I to take a moment and learn a few things about Belgium. This week we studied the country of Belgium.

Firms of Canada was a helpful site. Giving us several maps to pour over as we learned the provinces or states of Belgium, saw drawings of how the Germans moved in and more.

I never realized how close Belgium and Holland were before. I knew a lady in our church who had some difficulty (I don’t know what exactly) between Belgium and Holland and it caused her some hard times. Being from Belgium and attending a Dutch based church (her husband was Dutch)… anyways, there were issues that I never really understood. Seeing the proximity puts it into perspective. Making me wonder if some of it was nationalism based.

So what did we learn about Belgium. My son being who he is ALWAYS turns to videos. Whereas I, since I love to read, always turn to websites. Makes for good learning opportunities as we each show the other what we’ve discovered. 🙂

I found this rather cool site with black and white photography of Belgium in the 1900’s.

I found this site on the culture of Belgium, it’s not specific to the early 1900’s but I found it difficult to find a good site that was specific to that time period.

My lad found this video very interesting, giving him a different perspective on the German invasion of Belgium, while admitting to the terrible violence of the original invasion and balancing with other invasions.

I spent some looking for lapbooks/unit studies etc for Belgium specifically and couldn’t find a thing. I did find a variety for generically studying Europe.

I did learn some traditional dishes: speculaas, Belgian waffles, croquettes, mussels and potato based dishes.

This past Thursday night we did waffles for supper as part of our hands-on studying of the war. We just used pancake mix to make them as we were in a bit of a rush. The lad wants to remake them this next weekend to that Dad can experience Belgium with us. We will then make them from scratch and have fruit and whipped cream with them.

Living Maps

September 19, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

People often talk about a city as if she were a person, Adam Dant takes that notion and thought… what if I could draw a map of a city showing her personality? From that we get the book Living Maps, a look into the heart and history of 28 cities from around the world.

From the cover:

This collection of maps explores the unique personalities of 28 cities around the world, shedding light on the strange and marvelous ways in which humans interact with the places they call home. Artist and creative cartographer Adam Dant dissects Manhattan in an anatomical diagram, traces the form of a Picasso nude in the streets of Monaco, and transforms the crisscrossing paths of boats on the Bosporus into the nerves of Istanbul. Dant draws on the history, culture, and geography of each city and on the beguiling aesthetic of antique maps to create gorgeous works of cartographic art. Witty, insightful, and adorned with a gold foil-stamped cover, this book will capture the imaginations of travelers, map enthusiasts, history buffs, and dreamers.

What you get:

The author has three page introduction explaining the origin of the maps (Dr. London) and the thoughts behind the making of them. Rearranged and displayed for us from the crumbling pages of old books.

Each city is introduced with four smaller images, and one larger one depicting different aspects of th ecity. Brief text accompanies each of the smaller images.

The next page presents us with a full-colour image of the city personified. The images were well put together, presented in different formats, some on a tile background, others laid out on paper, and others appeared as simple outlines with city streets, others had smaller images running around the edges of the maps. A good variety in typology.

My thoughts:

I have to admit, I’m not sure what I think of this book. Part of me is intrigued, but there is also a solid part of me that is a bit freaked out. I don’t quite understand it myself. The map of Edinburgh showing the mix between the old and the new had me intrigued, and Venice with the lion… I liked those, they made me think…. yet the maps of London and Tokyo had me quickly turning the pages saying nope, nope, not that.

The freaked out moments had me not wanting to turn back to the book despite my intrigue with the rest of the book. So it’s hard for me to get past the negative to reach the positive, but I am admittedly a person that is easily freaked out by the unusual. And frankly, seeing a city personified is a bit unusual in the drawn form.

At the same time, I have inklings of the possibilities for an art class (not one taught by me) where students are challenged to see the personality of an object, city, thought pattern and then find a way to express that in a visual form. This book could prove to be an inspiration for that type of class.

Living Maps: An Atlas of Cities Personified
Adam Dant
Chronicle Books
Hardcover, 128 pages
Art, Geography, History, Maps
Reviewed for Raincoast Books.

Find it on Amazon.

11 Ways to Study Geography

July 6, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

One of the things my guys and I like to do is go camping. We tend to like camping in places where there are new things to discover like lakes, rocks and paths we haven’t previously taken. We have some favourite places to go like Half-Way Lake, Cypress Lake and Grundy Lake. Ways to explore geography, nature, swim, kayak and just have fun. Going up to the north gives us a chance to explore a very rocky terrain, so different from where we live, and there are small lakes everywhere it seems. It is so much fun.

Other than getting out there and seeing things, because honestly I can’t afford to fly around the world and see all the different things I want to see and to show my lad, how do I help him have a well-rounded sense of the world we live in? To delight with him over the wonders of creation and all the different ways the world has been shaped? To that end, let us learn all the ways you can study geography.

Country studies as a whole unit or by provinces or cities

Studying geography can take in you in many different directions.

You can do unit studies like these: Or focus on the food, the dolls, the bread, dances, music, or any aspect of their culture. You can even do a study focusing on the animals of different counties (like snakes, dogs or cattle from around the world).

One of the things we did was study countries for a week and then follow it up with a meal. So much fun to pull it all together that way. Here’s one we did on Azerbaijan and Finland. I did others, I just can’t find them all right now. 🙂

You might want to check out these Island studies and all that was incorporated. Looks like they had so much fun!

Historical byproduct

Geography often happens as by-product of history. It helps to see where history happens, and you can often understand why battles happen if you understand the lay of the land and the importance of it. For instance, if you don’t understand the inundation of the Nile you would never understand why the bulk of Egyptian life happened around the Nile River.

Next year my lad wants to study Canada and the wars, I am imaging that we will be making salt dough maps of countries, or making puzzles showing the lay of the land so we can understand why some battles were so fierce in the battles due to the advantageous positions they gave.

Maps

I’ve heard of several families that put a map on their kitchen table or some place where family regularly sits to social or do school work. “Pass the salt.. It’s sitting near Uraguay” type of things can be said. Another put a world map on the wall in front of the toilet, in a nice frame, but it’s another way to learn while otherwise occupied.

One homeschool mom even made a map of her town. Isn’t that a great way to learn some mapping skills?

Or you could take a road trip to a far off place and have your children follow along with their own maps. Putting together this global puzzle might be fun today. MegaMaps might suit you well.

Youtube Channels

Youtube has often come to my rescue when I’ve wanted something about a place or country. What you learn in one video can send you on a rabbit trail after idea and before you know it, you’ve filled up your day with learning.

Geography Now. along with National Geographic. are the channels I am most familiar with. There is also Geography focus and Darron Gedge.

Involving Others:

Involving others as you learn geography can be a fun way to engage multiple skills. You could get penpals, invite international students into your home, arrange a postcard swap, send Christmas cards and more. You can visit people from other countries and learn about where they are from. We live in such a multi-cultural society, isn’t it a good thing to learn from them? When my sister moved out west she mentioned how much she missed having thunderstorms. Apparently in British Columbia you don’t get a good thunderstorm. I would never have known that if I had asked her one day what was bugging her. Connections eh?

We went caving two years ago in Pennsylvania (just a couple of guided tours). It sparked an interest in my lad and we’ve watched a few videos since then.

Books:

Oh, the geography you can learn from books! From learning about cities around the world like Rome or Tokyo, learning different ways you can travel (terrain matters), natural places, and so much more. You can also use a book like Penny’s World to teach map making skills. The geography book might be a useful additon. If you need some help choosing good books, some good advice. Visiting Europe might be just what you are looking for, I know it intrigues me for my lad’s studies next year.

Games

Lizard Point Quizzes are fun, free, interactive map quizzes to help you learn about the world around you. Hundreds of map-based quizzes to help you learn countries, states, cities, physical features and more. It’s rather fun and certainly taught me how much I don’t know about where countries are! WOW I was surprised. Three chances you get followed by an opportunity to see the correct answer.

Seterra is another one with lots of quizzes to help you learn your countries, flags, and more. Suggested to me by Sheila.

Board Games are often a great way to enhance geograhy skills. One of our favourites is called Take Off and another called Risk.

Some geography-based board games (just click on image to learn more)

Art

You can use art as you learn. Making salt dough countries, volcanic eruptions, as well as flags. You could simply for a term, focus on doing an art project from around the world. Adding art just makes for a fun, hands-on way to learn about geography.

You could study how erosion changes the path of rivers (a science experiment that could also be an art project). Or using pastels as you learn about Nova Scotia. You never know what you might find that inspires you to dig deeper into the world we live on.

Hands-On Geography: Australia Awesome and Deadly Animal Art.

Subscription boxes.

You could use a number of different subscription boxes to easily introduce food, art and culture from different countries around the world. There is little Passports (see a review), or (see a review). Other boxes that you might not know of: National Geographic, The Atlas Crate from KiwiCo., Mysteries in Time, and Junior Explorers.

Other Geography learning ideas.

Somtimes you just need something quick, here are 35 Hands-on Geography Activities to do in 15 Minutes or Less.

5 Ways to Raise a Natural Geography-Lover. Isn’t this what we want to do?

Geoscavenge – A Rock and Mineral Hunt. I thought this was an interesting way to make hunters think!

Three no fuss ways to explore with littles.

Geography Curriculum Ideas.

Free Worksheets

Want some worksheets to go along with all the learning you are doing?

Education.com, TLSBooks, 3D Geography, Student Handouts, and Help Teaching. There are oodles of places on-line to look, so suss out what you need and go looking for it. Chances are high you will find it. If you want to use NotebookingPages they have a large number of pages that will be useful for any geography project you have. This is a paid site though, just so you know. 🙂 Though as you can see, some of it is free. 🙂

And of course Schoolhouseteachers.com has an amazing geography section you might want to check out. Geography of the bible, living geography, everyday explorers (I’ve used this and found it thorough) and more.

Just so you know it’s currently on sale (until July 6). “The AMERICA sale is nearly over! Purchase a 1-year Ultimate membership for only $99 (reg. $179) and score over $130 worth of FREE bonuses. Plus, you’ll have a chance to win a laptop and patriotic jellybeans. Your whole family will have access to over 380 courses (PreK-12) in a variety of subjects as well as tons of homeschool resources and tools to help you stay organized and plan your child’s curriculum. USA Bonuses include a free tote, the 2018 TOS summer print magazine, a bundle of 16 e-books, and 4 TOS print magazine back issues. This is such a special sale that we added more. Every 100th subscriber WINS a laptop and every 10th subscriber receives patriotic jellybeans, made in the USA! At Checkout, Use Code AMERICA. Hurry this huge opportunity ends Friday, 7/6!”

Coupon Code: AMERICA. What is sold: SchoolhouseTeachers.com Annual Membership. Price: $99/year, locked-in pricing (normally $179/year)

Others in this series:

Coding.
Foreign Language.
Physical Education.
Math.
Financial Literacy.

Your turn

What geography resources have I missed? What are your favourites?

Review: Around the World in 50 Ways

April 5, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

My lad is really enjoying reading through non-fiction books as part of his required reading time. He’s not a huge reader (as videos are totally his thing). I like to cultivate his ability to read by giving him interesting books he might not otherwise consider. Around the World in 50 Ways is one book I gave him to read.

In Around the World in 50 Ways, you are to get ready to take a trip. You start in London, England and are invited to take a train, a bus or a boat…where will your adventures take you?

Will you end up in Kolkata? Or perhaps Toronto? What about Sydney or Victoria or even Havana? 50 different ways to travel, will you continue your journey or hit a dead end?

What do you do when it comes to a dead end?

You start your adventure all over again. Right back to the beginning planning a different trip around the world, maybe this time you’ll take in a canoe ride, or go on a gondola, a camel anyone? Along the way you’ll learn interesting tidbits about the cities/countries you are visiting.

Around the world in 50 ways is a choose-your-own travel adventure book. The reader makes a choice about which trip option they want to take to get from point a to point b. The full colour illustrations are filled with details about the location, from the shape of an island to the canals of Venice. The question is always presented “where next?” The choice in the hands of the beholder.

The Lad’s Thoughts:

“It was okay. I liked learning about all the different places in the world. I liked doing the adventures. But I really just wanted to learn about all the places in the world. I recommend that you do the adventures 3 or 4 times, and then just read it like an ordinary book.”

My thoughts:

I liked the variety of places visited, there wasn’t a continent not visited as far as I could tell. My lad just came in and said loudly “I visited everywhere!” So there you go. He liked that he got a chance to see glimpses all around the world. No one country was favoured over another. There was good variety in transportation, though admittedly most visits were done via plane (how else are you going to cross large bodies of water quickly?).

Around the World in 50 Ways
Dan Smith, author
Frances Castle, illustrator
Lonely Planet Kids
Flexibound, 164 pages, 9-12
Series: Choose your own travel adventure
Geography, middle school, travel, 
Reviewed for Raincoast books.
Where to purchase: Amazon Link.

Review: City Trails: Rome

March 17, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

It was rather fun looking through City Trails – Rome with my lad recently. We’ve been studying Ancient History and have been visiting the historical places in Rome. Therefore, as we walked throughout the pages of City Trails we frequently ran into places or statutes we had seen on our journeys.

But there is more to City Trails Rome than seeing historical building. We are taken on 19 different trails throughout the city. We get to taste food (or at least WANT to taste some food). Stopping by at the Mini Medicine Mound, Touring the wall of water and seeing Trajan’s Column up close. We saw Coypus swimming by and watch people dive in the River Tiber as we headed off to visit Rome’s zoo.

It’s always a fun day visiting Rome. 🙂 Especially while wearing the city’s colours of red and yellow. So grab up this book and visit the City Trails of Rome. Stop in at the markets, the toy shops and the restaurants…. feast your belly as well as your mind! 🙂 The Map provided on the opening flap of this tome leads you the various trails followed throughout the book. Visit, have fun.

My thoughts.

Unlike City Trails Tokyo, I found City Trails Rome to be laden with a lot of the historical monuments/buildings rather than the more modern buildings/attractions. This isn’t bad as many people go to visit Rome for those attractions. I just expected after the brightness and current day buildings of Tokyo to see some of more of the modern buildings as well. I have to admit, I would love to poke my head in at Bartolucci and Al Sogno. Those toy shops look to be delightful to walk though, and visiting the main market! Markets are always fun microscapes of a larger area eh? This book would be excellent as a go along when studying Rome, or if you were planning a trip there and wanted to see what your children would be most interested in seeing.

City Trails: Rome
     Secrets, Stories and Other Cool Stuff
Moira Butterfield
Lonely Planet Kids   104 pages, 8-12 years. 
Board cover with flap, geography 
Series: City Trails 
Reviewed for: Raincoast Books. 

Where to purchase? Amazon Link.

I recently reviewed another in this series: Tokyo. This book would go along very well with Drive Thru History as it just gives another way to see historical places. 🙂

Review: City Trails – Tokyo

March 8, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

City Trails is a series of books from Lonely Planet Kids that leads the reader through different cities around the world. Today we are looking at Tokyo. In it we will learn the secrets, stories and other cool stuff found in this magnificent city.

In the beginning of the book we get the table of contents, along with a map showing the points of interest. We get to watch a fish feeding, learn about earthquakes, visit Robot world, see the cars of the future and go to the theatre. All the major points of interest are highlighted to give you a well rounded view of the city.

In the process of visiting these points of interest we are also introduced to Japanese culture (such as it’s polite to talk quietly in public and one doesn’t express feelings of emotion in public). The fun of the kite festivals and so much more.

As you can see, the pages are in full colour, with a mixture of photos and drawings. The image of the Robot Park made me want to go visit it. Would be fun to see it you know? The reader is taken down into the fabric district, the traditional food streets, and all the places dedicated to animals.

What I thought:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it showed me parts of Tokyo I hadn’t even considered. Who would think of a museum dedicated to parasites? Or learning what traditional Japanese underwear was? It was just filled with interesting tidbits about the city and the Japanese culture. Just a fun book. Made me want to go visit Tokyo so I could see all these sights for myself.. perhaps one day. 🙂 This would be a great book to hand to an upper elementary to middle school student if you are doing a country study, or wanting to visit Japan. They could easily pick a few items out that they wanted to know more about.

City Trails: Tokyo
Anna Claybourne
Lonely Planet Kids
104 pages, 8-12 years.
Board cover with flap, geography
Series: City Trails
Reviewed for: Raincoast Books. 

Where to purchase?   Amazon Link.

Other books that teach about geographical areas:

Following the Great Wall. 
Rocky Mountain Explorer.
Mission to Pluto.

Geography

World’s Strangest….

What you get:

My Thoughts:

Country Study: Belgium

Living Maps

From the cover:

What you get:

My thoughts:

11 Ways to Study Geography

Country studies as a whole unit or by provinces or cities

Historical byproduct

Maps

Youtube Channels

Involving Others:

Books:

Games

Art

Subscription boxes.

Other Geography learning ideas.

Free Worksheets

Others in this series:

Your turn

Review: Around the World in 50 Ways

What do you do when it comes to a dead end?

The Lad’s Thoughts:

My thoughts:

Review: City Trails: Rome

My thoughts.

Review: City Trails – Tokyo

What I thought:

Amazon Affiliate information

Tinker Crate Affiliate

Geography

What you get:

My Thoughts:

From the cover:

What you get:

My thoughts:

Country studies as a whole unit or by provinces or cities

Historical byproduct

Maps

Youtube Channels

Involving Others:

Books:

Games

Art

Subscription boxes.

Other Geography learning ideas.

Free Worksheets

Others in this series:

Your turn

What do you do when it comes to a dead end?

The Lad’s Thoughts:

My thoughts:

My thoughts.

What I thought:

Want to Stay Informed?

Thank you!

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