We try to do this every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:30 p.m, some weeks we only do it once.
I made lesson plans almost exactly verbatim from Leigh Bortins' book The Core and her chapter on Geography. I wasn't sure how this would go over, but our girls love it. It is hard, and for a perfectionist like Bella, or one who likes to work fast like Sophia, it can be frustrating. But they really do like it, and once they get over initial frustrations, as the map takes shape they appreciate the work it took to get there. We are not very far along yet.
We started out just drawing and redrawing the major circles of Latitude (CC has a song for this). And just like she recommends in her book, I put on some classical music every class and we draw, draw, draw. Then we started our continent focus on Africa. We are about between Lessons 7 and 8 (see chart below).
I decided to change this by focusing on Africa first (she recommends South America) and trying to add in the Geography we are learning this cycle which happens to be a lot in Africa. So far they have done nothing from memory, we are always looking at maps and practicing. We are moving towards doing this from memory but the main goal right now is replicating proportionally and then knowing where features go. It is a slow process overall, but when we get going our whole class time is about 20 minutes or less unless they keep going. On days they are easily frustrated I cut it short and let them draw boats in their oceans or anything else.
We are also using bigger paper than 8 1/2 x 11. Once we got the latitude lines down I took a sheet with those lines on it and got a bunch of copies.
I don't know if they (we!) will ever be able to do this without looking at a map and don't care that much, but we are having lots of fun trying!
Here is my One Note file of my lessons:
From the Core.
|
Resources
|
(the core), Rand McNally, DK first, barefoot books,
CC trivium tables, blob maps, DWN #8 p 24
|
|
Remember
|
DK atlas p 4-5: RM to draw world lines, older kids
label all, younger label with abbreviations
|
|
Lesson
|
Activity
|
|
Lesson 1
|
Make own latitude
line paper
8 1/2 x 11
Do this two times,
sing CC song for major circles of Lat (Remember: Ladder tude).
|
|
Lesson 2
|
Repeat week one
from scratch, if memorized then add prime meridian and IDL
PM: through
England/west africa
IDL: Alaska russia
Pac Ocean
Put americas in
West for ease
|
|
Lesson 3
|
Repeat lesson 1
and 2
|
|
Lesson 4
|
Map copying of any
kind…DWN or any atlas fun with music
|
|
Lesson 5
|
B: repeat 1 and 2
add africa blob or outline:
|
|
Lesson 6
|
Repeat lesson 5
Keep redrawing
blob over previous one, draw on reverse of paper. Throw away
|
|
Lesson 7
|
Clean sheet, draw
grid of circles
Draw africa 'blob'
Now draw blobs of
other continents
Just practice size
compared to others and where they sit on great circles
Skill: how to look
carefully and replicate proportionally
|
|
Lesson 8
|
Repeat lesson 7,
label all continents, and the four oceans
|
|
Lesson 9
|
Practice blob
mapping until they cross circles accurately, until you are satisfied
|
|
Lesson 10
|
Draw as neatly as
possible all grids, all blobs without looking at original map, then look and
correct.
Repeat .
|
|
Lesson 11
|
Individual
continent, same process
Africa: draw lines
See: DWN: #8 p 24,
see printed map also
Read facts,
Just practice
shaping and placing, color in
See: barefoot book
and DK
|
|
Lesson 12
|
Repeat lesson 11
|
|
Lesson 13
|
Re draw: add Egypt
shape, Nile, river crete
|
|
Lesson 14
|
Africa: redraw:
add Egypt empire features
Get out atlas add
Western africa features
|
|
Lesson 15
|
Repeat 13/14
|
|
Lesson 16
|
Repeat, add
Ancient Africa features, see CC trivium
|
|
Lesson 17
|
Repeat add all
|
|
Lesson 18
|
Repeat, add Africa
waters
|
|
Lesson 19
|
Repeat, add
southern africa wk 17
|
|
Lesson 19
|
Repeat add all by
looking
|
|
Lesson 20
|
Repeat final
Africa with features not looking
|
