Our homeschool recently had the opportunity to review the
Geography I curriculum by
Memoria Press. Geography I covers the regions of the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. There are 3 books that come with Geography I: Student Text, Student Workbook and Teacher Guide. Our homeschool also received the recommended supplemental material to accompany the Geography I texts. The additional books we received focused on the United States (states, capitals) and was a review from what is recommended to be taught the previous year.
My 6th grader is the one who is using the Geography materials. He really likes them. I think one of reasons he likes them so much is that they are so straightforward to use. I basically just gave him the student texts and workbooks and told him to get started. We have covered most of the geographical locations in the curriculum, so this was a wonderful review.
The basic idea is for your child to read a portion of the student text (Israel for example). He or she would then go to the "Israel" page in the workbook and fill in the blanks and map. Each section begins with an overview of all the countries in a particular area. Then, you move on to study the countries in more detail. One of my favorite aspects about the maps is the overlap. Each time you study a country, you mark that country and all the surrounding countries on the map. Therefore, several countries are labeled again and again. Good repetition. At the end of the study of a particular region, there is a review map where the student labels and colors each country. A review of countries and their capitals is also given. (Turkey has been in the news a lot recently. While watching the news the other day, Ankara was mentioned. My son immediately said, "That's the capital of Turkey!")
The United States (States and Capitals Review) curriculum worked a bit differently. Included in this package is a Student Workbook and a Teacher Key, Quizzes and Tests book. There is no text, since it assumes your child learned all of the information the previous year. This review worked well for us, even thought we had not used the Memoria Press United States curriculum previously. It worked perfectly as a review from our own homeschool studies on the United States. Since there is no text, your child works straight out of the workbook. What worked best for us was for my son to fill in as much as he knew, and then look at a map for the rest of the information. The workbook has your child filling in blanks and working with maps. My son enjoyed this very much. (While at the dentist, an adult came and looked over his shoulder and asked, "Where did you get those great books?" We told them, and then they went on to say that they just figured out recently that New Mexico was a state. She said, "I think I need to get me a book like yours!")
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| Reading from the Student Text |
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| The desk map comes in handy! |
Grade Range:
This curriculum is for 4th grade and up.
