A Child’s Geography Volume 3 {Review & GIVEAWAY!}

 

I was incredibly blessed to be part of the launch team for A Child’s Geography Explore the Classical World and receive a copy of this book to review. 

I’ll tell you what this is now our history and geography for this year!

Are your kids bored with history and geography?  Have you searched and searched and never found a fun engaging way to teach or learn history?  Do you need something that can be taught to multiple age ranges?  Something affordable, that won’t break the bank? Something with very little teacher prep? 

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions then, read on!  (If not, still read on!)

This book, written by Terri Johnson, is the 3rd in a series.  The first two books are written by Ann Voskamp and are A Child’s Geography: Explore His Earth and A Child’s Geography: Explore the Holy Land.  Neither of which we have ever used.  All 3 books are published by Knowledge Quest.  They are said to all compliment each other nicely, but you do not have to make the commitment to do all of them.  They also do not have to be done in any particular order.  I can appreciate a book that stands on it’s own like this.  This book is geared toward kids in grades 1 through 6 and can be used with a few supplements for older kids.  I have primarily been using this with my 8 year old 3rd grader. 

Explore The Classical World has 15 chapters covering 11 countries.

• Greece
• Macedonia
• Albania
• Montenegro
• Serbia
• Bosnia
• Herzegovina
• Croatia
• Slovenia
• Italy and,
• Malta

Each book also comes with a CD-Rom full of optional activities such as map work, prayer guides, activities and and recipes, each organized by chapter for easy to find resources. 

Each chapter is written in a conversational style with sentences like; “Let’s head back down the zigzag footpath to the port below.” You really feel like you are on vacation in the location you are learning about.  A true living book!  Not a boring bland textbook!

This is not written chronologically but rather by location. Katey has had an amazing time being able to remember what she has learned this way, feeling like she is actually there.

The pictures are stunning!  Katey fully loved the way every location was described using multiple senses.

We chose to do about 1 chapter each week.  Sometimes a chapter took more than one week.  We fully used the CD-Rom full of optional activities.

We have made mosaics, baklava, and even painted some Greek pottery. 

There are truly so many activities to choose from and the book stresses that it is not important to do them all.  Terri  wants to give you more options then you will ever need!  The recipes are simple, unique and true to the culture you are learning about.

Each chapter has two “stopping points.”  One is about the middle of the chapter and one is at the end.  At each one you are asked to take field notes.  - Katey is not a star writer and we chose to do her field notes picture style.  She drew and colored pictures about what she learned and remembered.  This took the pressure of her worrying about what to write and be willing to listen and learn. There are also some discussion questions.  I totally appreciate those as sometimes I am just not sure what to ask my kids to make sure they were listening intently and paying attention.  These are questions like; “What is a peninsula?”, “Would you like to live there?”  and “Why?” 

We have been using this book as our special one on one- no interruption school time that I try to do with each of my children.  That has made this book particularly special for us.

What a typical week of using this geography looked like for us:

We began each week on Monday reading the first half of the chapter together. Doing the discussion questions that came up.  Then she would draw a picture of her favorite part.  Tuesdays we would do one of the activities in the book, usually a craft type activity.  On Wednesdays we would read the second half of the chapter and do the discussion questions, again, she would draw in her field guide. We took Thursdays off since that is our co-op day.  On Friday’s we would make one of the suggested recipe from the CD-Rom.

Explore the Classical World is priced at $34.95 and can be purchased from Knowledge Quest. 

Change History in your home!

Oh, oh, oh!  Guess what!  I almost forgot!  You can win your very own digital {PDF} copy of this book and all the additional resources just by entering using the Rafflecopter below!! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

While your at it, don’t forget to enter the Ultimate Giveaway too!  over $650 worth of Homeschool Curriculum.

 

  

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product in exchange for my honest opinion and review.  I am not required to give a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.  All opinions I have expressed are my own and those of my family.  I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Regulations.