Geography Study

At least once a month, we pick a country to study. Our choices are inspired from various resources- books, plays, restaurants, conversations, or our weekly movie night. Our last geography study was inspired by a History Channel series on America. During the show, it talked about Japan and Pearl Harbor and the Japanese "Zero" airplanes. My children are a little young to really understand all that was discussed in the show, but the airplanes caught the attention of my oldest. He asked if we could do our next study on Japan. He wanted to study about Japan and the "Zero."


For our geography study, we usually do the following:

• mark the location on the map (talk about the latitude/longitude - little over their heads right now, but I do it anyway)
• talk about the distance 
• check out books from our local library
• find a traditional recipe from that country
• make an art project inspired by the country
• listen to traditional music from the country
• research language from the country
• create a "geography box" from the country (the geography box usually includes 6 things to represent what we have learned from that country.

          For example, our Japanese geography box included the following:

•  rice
•  paper lantern
•  Feng shui book
•  our names in Japanese handwriting
  (Google Translate is a wonderful tool for doing this)
•  picture of the Japanese zero
•  handmade volcano (more than 70% of Japan consists of mountains, including        more than 200 volcanoes -Mt. Fuji is located in Japan)
•  toy car - Japan is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world

I'll try to get a picture uploaded of our latest box in the next couple of days.... my batteries have died in my camera and I haven't had the chance to run out and get more!