Making Geography fun for school children

Author: osa | Posted: 19.01.2012

Cyclones in Orissa, a flood in Cherrapunji, a volcanic eruption in Japan, are all events that give you the opportunity to teach your child Geography. Grab a globe or an atlas and get your children to look for the places in the news. Take a Barometer and tell them to measure the atmospheric pressure when it’s cold and watch the fun! All you need is a good atlas, globe or even a wall map in your home! Children love a challenge, and each time they do it, they will get a little more experienced.

There are a number of geography based games available in the market like Round the World Challenge or the Paddington World Mystery Tour CD Rom games and working on jigsaw puzzles are also great bonding times as a family are great geography game for younger kids and since most kids love games will be having so much fun playing that they won't even realize they are learning at the same time. A popular website that teaches kid’s about longitude and latitude, the position of continents, countries and capital cities.

The best way to learn about other countries is to communicate with the people living there. You could make pen pals or watch new friends sign up on your face book page and keep in touch with them. This will give them an in depth knowledge about a specific country or you could sign up with Post crossing and receive postcards from all over the world. This will help you get to know a little more about the place. There is a sense of adventure that children find in traveling and exploring with the aid of a map.

The tiny tots can be prepared to read a map by familiarizing them with directional words that they can use in their daily conversation. Words and phrase such as above and below, to the right and to the left, farther and nearer, here and there, can help your child with the concept of location. As they grow up, teach them how to find the North of the compass sign and hold the map correctly before they increase their vocabulary and start using words like North, South, East and West. Begin by teaching them how to make a map of small things like the kitchen area, making symbols for the drainpipe, or cupboard.

After all, Floor plans are maps too !Looking up at the night sky and seeing the sky and moon will teach them the relationship between the sun and the earth which can be understood by observing day and night and the weather. Kids can be introduced to a scale of miles or kilometers on a hike. Spend some time with your children and ask them whether they know where India is? Or what the capital of Austria is? Do they know what language is spoken in Egypt? With the internet and air travel turning our world into a global village, it is more and more important that we teach kids Geography to understand it.

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This article has been posted by a school guide of OnlineSchoolAdmissions.Com, who also provides free of cost counseling to parents on school admissions. A visit to the site lets parents know about the Top Schools in Mumbai or Top Schools in Nagpur of their choice. They can also search for Top Schools in Noida as per their choice and fill up the school application forms online.

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