Our Geography Lessons

Warning: The following post is a mother's bragging on her smarty-pants son. :)

Our geography curriculum this year by "My Father's World" is called Exploring Countries and Cultures. It's written by a missionary couple and has expanded our view of the world by LEAPS AND BOUNDS. Every week, we are introduced to a new country and learn everything from the agriculture they grow, to their religious beliefs, to the landscape, to their struggles, etc. We've been able to pray for specific South American countries who need Jesus and the Bible translated into their own language. We've learned so much in just the first 2 months of school.

The curriculum comes with a geography game that we play about 3 times a week. It's really a "Name That Country" kind of game. Each country on a continent is labeled with a number. Then we have index cards with the name of the country on one side and the number where's it's located, the country and continent's names on the other. When we successfully locate the country, we get to put a penny on the map. The person with the most pennies on their map at the end of the game, wins.



You all know Andrew and his LOVE for maps and anything regarding planes, war stories and especially World War II. And you all know me. My lack of knowledge regarding all those things. So naturally I was regretting the moment we crossed the border into our first European country. I knew there would be a HARD BEATING coming up soon. I'd loose that game so fast, he'd make me look like a fool.

Andrew's knowledge of Europe doesn't just include the names of the countries, but ALL the Allies and Axis' major pushes of war. He's got so many war stories floating around that brain of his that he could talk nonstop about it for days. Oh, yea, he does that too.

Well, today was the day. Our first day to play the "Name that European Country" game. For Andrew's grade level, we are learning about 90% of them, mostly the largest and most well known. Andrew only missed 7 out of 26. He's a third grader that's never "formally" studied geography and he knew where 19 countries were on the map. THAT'S IMPRESSIVE! But what's not too shabby, is that I missed only 8 of them. That's good for me considering I had to be corrected by Andrew on Turkey and Russia. I just didn't know that they were considered a Eurasian country spanning both Asia and Europe. This curriculum is teaching me as much as it's teaching them. It's money well spent.