geography - how to start

Showing them videos/photos of some popular cities will help.

My niece likes northern pole since my sis in law showed her some pics.
And also she showed her videos of some popular cities..

Its better if they get to see them live. But practically its imposible to show them everything be cause of climatic conditions, economically etc

So i liked this idea

 

How about getting a nice globe? The one which they get to pick and choose at the store?

 

spafamily,

what age group are we talking about here? I love geography and we do a lot of conversations about the subject on our house. I would be happy to share based on the age group. I hope I have not missed that part in your post.

 

Hi,
My daughter and I use the Maps app on the Mac to explore the world as a globe (satellite version) and then explore each country in terms of its natural terrain,landforms,rivers etc. You can also try Google Maps 3D(download the plug-in).
We also get books from the library about different countries,talk about the people,the way they dress,the culture etc.

 

Lets not forget how the climate/winds and monsoon effect the crops.
If children are studying in India then they must know about the arabian sea branch and the bay of Bengal branch and how these winds effect the kharif and rabi crops.
Marking these on a map helps.

 

For us maps have been always about travel and weather! I have, rather had a big map pasted on the wall in my kids room and we would talk about travel from say US to India - read about both the countries. Then we graduated to stop overs, say Europe and began introduction to those countries. That was with my DS. With my DD, she is a people's person. She learns quickly if it is about a friend from a different country. That is how I am teaching her now and of course travel again!

I think it is easier to go by continent and cover the flags of the countries too along with languages. You can also start the introduction with the wonders of the world - kids always get excited with that. For me, more than academic interest it was and is a general interest - only because I love to learn and want to teach my kids the same way. We have also learnt about countries using festivals!

The good thing is once kids get hooked on, it is much easier for them!

 

well,with the sort of education we have we may memorize the name of capital of some far flung country but don't know the name of river/stream flowing near our house /town....I always had this problem that the education is sort of centralized & not area specific.....some time should be spend in school teaching kids about their own town/city/district .

we need to teach our kids the sort of soil,vegetation,animal/bird/reptile life we have around the place we stay...........we need to teach them about our local freedom fighter as much as we need to teach them about Mandela
we need them to understand the sort of rainfall our own district receives & why along with the general weather of country & world...........what is the history of our own small village,town ...........

Excuse my ranting but I do feel deeply when I see kids chanting the names of national animal,bird or something but can't recognize a dove from pigeon....