Read this if you kid has trouble with continents vs. countries
First, go to Wal-Mart and buy a cloth World Map in the cloth by the yard section. They have these very colorful appealing world maps. Pin it up on the wall. I used pushpins and will fill in with spackle if needed.
Next, as a summer activity make 7 large continent papers and place over each of the seven continents. Label these with your child. Pin over each continent section of the earth. This will help the kid understand that continents are just sections of our planet. Some say God made the continents and man made the country borders. Continents can be seen from the moon but countries can’t cause man just made it up. This has helped my students.
Take string and place over the equator, prime meridian, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. Teach the difference between longitude and latitude. Label the lines with sharpie or post it notes.
Draw in the world’s major rivers like Nile, Mississippi, Amazon. Do mountains next.
Show them where Iraq is located, where your ancestors lived etc….
Play Carmen San Diego and find the countries visited.
Label where some famous sights are like Leaning Tower of Pisa, Big Ben, and Grand Canyon. Etc….
Tell them where you have been.
Make sure they know what country is north of the USA and South. Make sure they know what languages are spoken in Canada and Mexico.
Make sure they know what the 4 major oceans are. Tell them if their foot has ever been in any of those oceans. You’d be so surprised that kids don’t know what oceans they’ve been to.
My children are having fun with this cheap fun activity. I am going to keep this map up and refer to it whenever we read a story in the newspaper, or chapter book.
See what else you can come up with. Kids need to know what street address, city, county, country, continent, planet etc… that they live in. You would be so surprised to find out how many don’t know. :oops:
I am having so much fun doing this at home with my own kids after doing this for years with my students.
:lol: