Geography Printable – This book of terms for physical landforms I made to use with Runkle Geography
Geography, Country Studies & Timelines
You can grab these free printable physical landform vocabulary words at this post Free Physical Landform Vocabulary for an O Ring Fun Geography Activity.
I laminated them at home and put them on an “0” ring for easy use.
Did you guess which country my boys chose at the Geography Quest? Yep it was Turkey. To be honest, I was a tad shocked but happy at the same time that they chose that country. My oldest son, Mr. Senior 2013, got the final say on country choice since this is his last year to school {sniffle}. Somewhere along your homeschool journey you wonder if “too much history” is too much. {mmmm does that sense?} You pray most of what you teach your sons sticks with them. When he chose to talk about Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, and write his essay on it, I was thrilled because of the rich history of the country.
It is absolutely fascinating to study about not only because of the beautiful buildings like the Hagia Sophia that still stand today but because of the diverse influence of the country. One could spend a lengthy unit study just on the influence of Christians on Constantinople then the Muslim influence. However, since this was our not back to school Geography Quest with our field trip group, we had to condense it to about a week of study. Here are some of the topics we read about in our country mini unit study. One small point to remember about planning and doing unit studies is that when a topic lends itself to one or more subjects easily than others, don’t force a fit. If you can’t find a topic for one subject like science or art, focus to enrich the subject/s that your topic does naturally flow with and teach. Emphasis should be given to learning what interests you and your kids and it should be age appropriate.
Then Mr. Senior 2013 wanted to focus on the history of not just the whole country but on Istanbul. Remember I had mentioned how a unit study is like a funnel, and you want to narrow down to the subtopic that interests your family.
Ancient History/Art: Before he spent time talking on Istanbul, he started off with the story of the Trojan war. He showed how part is made up, part true and some speculation that surrounds the city of Troy. He did point out that that area is now Turkey. He moved quickly to focus on the Ottoman Turks conquering the city as well as talking about the Hagia Sophia. The Hagia Sophia is only one building among many that are full of the intricate Turkish artwork.
People coming from Europe called Turkey “Land of the Sunrise” and the early Christians called it “second holy land”. Istanbul is also called “Crossroads of the World” because of the meeting of cultures there.
He studied about Alexander the Great but didn’t present this to the group as that would have been “too much”. {Whoa back Mr. Senior 2013 there are small kids too at the Geography Quest}. He did mention Sultan Mehmed II because he was the conquering invader in Constantinople.
All of this led to a discussion about Islam as well with my older two sons. Tiny was off looking at more pictures of his rock rabbit because he wasn’t interested in this subject. That is the beauty again of unit studies. You can stay on them as long as your children’s appetite is being satisfied. The youngest ones can stop because their appetite is satisfied.
One thing I did notice was that there was not a lot of what I consider good resources on this unit study topic. There were lots of books that told the history of Istanbul. Even after several visits to our library, the books barely mentioned this area that has thousands of years of history.
I found a book by DK eyewitness travel on Istanbul that was of more value to Mr. Awesome since he likes reading about the modern day people too.
The first book was by Checkerboard Geography Library. The second one was by Milliken A Culture Resource Guide and this last book is the DK book.
Between my passport that Tiny showed to the group, the Turkish liras or money and passing out Turkish delight we got all of this in our mini unit study. We had to save time to savor the other countries presented at the Geography Quest by the other families. Some of the other kids wore hats that you would think come from France to the Mexican shirts worn by the boys. We had a great time kicking off our school year and the last year for Mr. Senior 2013. {may go into sappy mode}.
I hope these pages help you in your study about the countries. These are countries the kids wanted to learn about in our not back to school Geography Quest. Yep, they got to do the choosing. We learned about Costa Rica, France, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Romania and Turkey. These pages have a place to keep fast facts and then one part to do a mini report as you work your way through the countries. I do think we need to do this for another time or at least keep doing some more countries.
Country reports organized by region
Africa
South America
Go here to 9 Free South America Country Reports for Kids Notebooking Pages for the South America pages.
By Tina
I knew this time when we did a timeline that I did not want something all over the wall. I have done those and well I wanted something this time we “could keep” and was also “portable” if we had to ever move again. Too, I wanted something that we could use anywhere in the house.
Too another “need” I focused on was using a 3 ring binder since I love them so much and because they store so easily and you can add to them. Just like a storybook, I don’t feel you lose anything or your place in your history or a story because you flip pages. Kids know the story doesn’t end when they flip a page, so likewise with a flip page history notebook.
Give me portrait instead of landscape too. This is probably just preference but I have done many pages and timeline pages that are landscape and well we are done turning our notebook sideways. Yes I think this is going to be a pet peeve of mine. What good does it do to use it as a story book if you have to turn your neck each time? oh or is that turn the book?
I use to always think “IF” I just had the room to put something on the wall and now that I do have the room since I have two school areas, that is not what I want. (crazzzyyy) What it means is that now I can clearly define my needs and what I like best.
Also I had to decide how many increments to put in each section since some time periods in history we have less information on and others we have more.
One more thing I wanted was to focus also on art, science, literature, music and architect. Remember I told you history needs to “breathe and be alive”. It can’t and shouldn’t be all about snoring boring {yawn} dates. It has to be what that particular culture contributed to society so we can see the full picture.
So I created an “editable” page that you can fill in with those contributions whether it was to science, art or otherwise. You can edit, save and come back to it and print off as many as you want and put behind each page if you like OR behind each section.
And one last thing that bears repeating but we LOVE color here like most of our freebies! Our timelines have color as well.
About each time period, there are (2) choices of the type of layout for each period.
1 choice – Has less boxes and more empty space for gluing and sketching or even journaling.
2 choice – Has MORE boxes if you want to glue less, write less or add anything else to the format.
Two different formats to download for EACH time period.
Yes, I call it “More than a Timeline Notebook”. Did I mention that if you wanted to keep it easy for your younger set of kids they could have one and that your older set of kids could each have one or do one together?
The beauty of this method is that each child can have exactly what they want. and what you want them to do. GIVE ME FLEXIBILITY PLEASE.
a) Do you want it portable or not?
b) Can you use it with multiple children or is your focus going to be on one child or one group of children?
c) How much room do you want to write/glue pictures/or draw pictures?
d) Do you want to show other things besides dates, including topics like art, science and inventions from that time period?
e) How important is permanent binding? A loose leaf notebook can be added to, taken out and added to a bigger binder.
f) What type of layout do you want? Lapbook type, index cards, notebooking style, sketchbook or one continuous long one.
g) How will you divide the increments? In our study of history we realize that less is known in some earlier history periods than modern. I share below how we divided the increments.
Here is how I ended up dividing the increments and timeline
Ancient – 100 year increments 5000 B.C. to 300 C.E.
Medieval to Early Renaissance – 50 year increments 400 C.E. to 1650 C.E.
Renaissance and Early Modern – 25 increments 1700 C.E. to 1850 C.E.
Modern – 10 year increments 1875 C.E. to Present.
{100 year increments}
One with no lined boxes at the top of each page and one with lined boxes. Use the boxes for text, drawings or more gluing. Mix/match.
{50 year increments}
{25 year increments}
{25 year increments}
4.-Modern-Timeline-1875-CE-to-present-more-boxes.pdf (2846 downloads ) 4.-Modern-Timeline-1875-CE-to-present-less-boxes.pdf (2964 downloads )
Editable Sheet to add to your timeline by typing in about art, science, literature, religion, music, political and social issues and architecture from that time period.
Download but keep several copies on your computer so you can fill in for each time period that you choose and is valuable to give your older children a more enriching geography and history study.
Socialpoliticalartliterature-developments-timeline.pdf (2965 downloads )
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First of all these are great worksheets, but Tunisia is in Africa.