World history and geography

Our current topic of study is world history and geography.  We are using Trail Guides to World Geography by Cindy Wiggers.

We will cover a lot of mapping skills with this unit.  There are also daily warm up drills which is basically 2 questions about the topic to be covered.  For example, day 2 week 2 asks "What continents are located in the Eastern Hemisphere?" and "What continents are in the Western Hemisphere?"  This is just a way to get the ball rolling. 

The first week we covered:
~a review of the continents
~a review on how to use an atlas and a globe
~longitude and latitude
~they made a world fact chart
~equator
~locating and labeling the Arctic Circle, Antarctic Circle, equator, and the continents on the map

They also put together a geography notebook to put their finished work in.  The notebook includes 9 sections.  One for each continent, one for the world, and one for an illustrated geography dictionary.

Next week, we will cover:
~Pangea 
~plate tectonics
~continental drift
~review of volcanoes
~layers of the earth
~review of oceans
~begin to recognize flags of the world
~prime meridian
~international date line
~Pacific Rim

We will also work on mapping and start an illustrated geography dictionary for the notebooks.

I think we will be working on Trail Guides until our school year finishes.  There are a lot of topics to cover, and we have no reason to rush.