Galloping the Globe Unit Study: Intro to the World

We completed our first section of Galloping the Globe, a unit study by Geography Matters. This workbook gives many suggestions that can be tailored to meet the needs of your children. Although I used many of the suggestions listed, I also came up with some of my own, often using books I already owned or that were available at my local library.

I am currently using it for a Kindergartner, 2- 2nd graders, a 4th grader and a 7th grader. My 3 going on 4 year old sits in on some of it as well, and enjoys "coloring" maps and pictures along with everyone else. My 7th grader reads harder books on her own and does more report type papers, while the younger children enjoy making notebook pages displaying what they have learned.

We used Legends and Leagues, both book and workbook, to teach map skills with Mr. Latitude and Mr. Longitude. (This is available from Veritas Press)...

We learned the names of the 7 continents and the names of oceans using Geography Songs and labeled and colored a map...

We learned new geography terms and added them to our vocabulary list...

We studied several explorers and made colorful notebook pages about them...

For Science we studied Lupines by reading Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, a beautiful picture book about a lady who plants lupines to make the world a more beautiful place...

For Science we also studied weather, since this occurs all over the world. We learned about the water cycle using The Magic Schoolbus Visits the Waterworks, A Drop Around the World by Barbara Shaw McKinney as well as a few Let's Read And Find Out Science books about weather. The children colored some pictures from a Dover Coloring Book, All About the Weather.

We concluded our introduction to the world by reading How To Make An Apple Pie & See the World by Marjorie Priceman, a delightful book about gathering ingredients from all over the world to make an apple pie. Each child in turn picked a recipe and also "traveled" all over the world to collect his/her ingredients to make that recipe, making his/her own story, complete with pictures. Of course, we all worked together to bake 2 delicious apple pies to wrap up our study- yumm!

The first continent we are studying is Asia... coming soon!