Sunday, June 16, 2013

Geography, History, and Art oh my

 We received for review a complete Geography I program from Memoria Press for review in our homeschool. Since Geography wasn't something we had focused on other than location of the continents and oceans I thought this would be a good thing to add in. We are currently studying the ancients and Geography I covers the Middle East , North Africa, and Europe which is a perfect fit of the Ancients.
We started our with just reading the Student Text and talking about the worksheet. I would ask the boys to point out certain areas on the map in the text instead of writing it to begin with, then I had Cameron start writing in the Workbook. Cameron isn't a fan of workbooks, so I decided to add some extra fun to studying about ancient Israel, Ancient Iraq, and Ancient Syria.
I incorporated our history studies, a couple of Bible stories, some sidewalk chalk, and a small group of Playmobil characters and horses (might have had a cow as well) for outside school.
This collection of elements worked together with 2 little boys for a fun school day. We traveled with Abram and Sarai from Ur to Canaan after we drew and colored the map on the back patio. 
Something as simple as the maps included in Geography I inspired a cross curricular activity that was fun and kept my boys engaged for 45 minutes. What a simple thing. 
The complete set costs $48.00 and includes the text, the workbook, the teacher's guide, and the United States Review set (student book and teacher's book) for grades 4-8. Due to copyright rules for this book, if you have more than 1 student using the program,  you will need to purchase an additional student workbook which retails for $11.95 for each student. 
The program is easy to follow and integrates well with a variety of programs and learning styles. I was able to easy incorporate the program into our current Classic approach to history but can also see how it would work into a unit study as well as hands on learning with the workbook as reinforcement. 
We will continue to work the program into our current Classical History Model over the summer and into the fall as we work through the Middle East and North Africa and arriving in Europe sometime around January. It may seem like a long journey but my boys seem to be embracing the classical history with activities to help them remember the geography and events that help form the modern world we live in. 
The schoolhouse review crew reviewed this product as well as Prima Latina a program I am looking forward to reading reviews on as I am wanting to add Latin in the fall for the boys. 
 photo mp_header_zps9aa8d9dc.jpg 
I love Memoria Press' motto, "Saving Western Civilization One Student at a Time", in our case it is two students but still , it really is that easy to save history by teaching the true history to our children. I gratefully support companies that are willing to go that extra mile in the education of our children. 

Photobucket

No comments:

Post a Comment