For geography, again, living books are of utmost importance, because living books allow children to learn about the people who live or lived in different parts of the world. This is much more interesting than learning just the dry facts about locations. It makes these places come alive!
The Charlotte Mason method doesn't dictate any sort of order to follow for geography, so I've been feeling at loose ends, trying to come up with a plan for our geography study this year. But a book I've been reading recently called Endangered Minds, by Jane M. Healy is inspiring me to start connecting our geography study with our study of history, for the author talks about the fact that contemporary children tend to get information in bits and pieces and have trouble connecting things together. So in history right now, since we are studying Ancient Egypt, my plan is to take a look at some maps from that time period, and then to do a brief study of contemporary Egypt. We are also tying in our study of art and poetry with history. And Lucy's writing practice will center on it too.
The Charlotte Mason method also suggest doing weekly map drills, to help children memorize maps. I picked up a pad of blank continent maps from United Art and Education, and once a week I had Lucy write in the names of the continents and major oceans from memory. Anything she didn't know, she left blank, and then filled in with an already labeled map. This worked great! She had all these memorized within a couple of weeks.
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1 comment:
so true about children getting their knowledge chopped up into bits, so they can't connect the pieces and make larger meaning out of it.
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