Author: Sandi Johnson
Pages: 196
Binding: Paperback
Copyright: 2004
ISBN: 9781557999726
As a member of Timberdoodles Blogger Review Team, we were sent one of Evan Moors geography books to review.
ABOUT GEOGRAPHY 3:
Daily Geography Practice Grade 3 introduces students to a wide range of geography topics, primarily map skills, including,
* Globes
* Compass roses
* Map keys
* Map grids and indexes
* Map scales
* Physical state maps
* Road maps
* Historical and cultural landmark maps
* Population and product maps
* Tourist and weather maps
* Regions of the United States
* Political maps of the United States, North America, and the world
This book includes 36 map lessons and includes over 100 geography terms within it's lessons. This book is reproducible and sells for 21.75$. The book includes 36 weekly lessons that are correlated to the National Geography Standards Six Essential Elements.
Timberdoodle sells Evan Moor Geography books for each grade level, grades 1-6. To view all of the available books, click, HERE.
OUR THOUGHTS:
Definition of Geography:
1. The study of the earth and its features and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity.
2. The physical characteristics, especially the surface features, of an area.
I have always loved geography. I find the study of the earth to be fascinating. I love learning about anything that relates to the continents and earths surface. I have noticed that my kids love it too. Their is one area of Geography that I felt very weak in for years though; map skills. Even as a young adult, you could give me a map to read and I would often feel like you had put a foreign language in front of me. Through the years I have gotten better with my map reading skills but that is because what I have learned, I taught myself (with some guidance from my husband). This was a huge hole in my own education, meaning that I was simply not ever taught how to properly use/read a map. I have been determined that it would not be a hole within my children's education. I am always looking for new and fresh ways to teach Geography so I was thrilled when we were given the opportunity to review this book. I have always loved Evan Moor products but had not had any experience with this geography series, until we were mailed this book to review.
I have been using this book with my 4th and 2nd grader for this review. The lessons are to the point and short each day. On average one lesson takes us about 15-20 minutes to cover, sometimes less. The book takes a very hands-on approach to learning. Throughout the book are map related activities that help to learn the map skills taught. Each lesson contains 3 pages. The first page of every lesson is always a map and the following 2 pages have questions to write answers to. You spread out these questions over a couple of days per week and then on Fridays their is a challenge activity that relates to the map activity that was covered that week. Fridays challenge often takes a bit longer than the usual lessons. It was our experience that the girls wanted to do more than the two questions assigned per day in the lessons so they would often keep going and complete a full weeks worth of lessons in just 2-3 days.
Each of the lessons are very self explanatory which allows these lessons to be very independent for students with a very hands-off teacher approach- if desired. My 4th grader has been able to be very independent in her work with this book. My 2nd grader has needed some guidance- usually with me reading the lesson to her as she has a reading delay due to speech issues.
The book/program was originally designed to be used with a classroom. It therefore offers overhead transparencies and informative teacher pages for each new topic. These are located in the back of the book. The teacher pages offer extra information but it has been our experience that the information is not needed for the lessons to be thoroughly taught. I wasn't sure how homeschool friendly these books would be, being that they were initially designed for a classroom. Sometimes materials designed for classrooms do not work well on a more one on one tutoring situation such as homeschooling but I have been very satisfied with how user friendly the program is for us as homeschoolers.
One of the things that I have really appreciated about Book 3 is that it covers regions of the United States within it's lessons. My 4th grader has been studying U.S. states this year and this has been a wonderful addition to those lessons. As she is learning various map skills she has also been learning more about the various states through the lessons in this book. On that note I have to share that I really love the maps that are used with each lesson. I wanted to share a few of them with you.
Our girls were thrilled when they reached week 6 and saw this map of our state. I was surprised that the map shows Hoover on it as most maps just show Birmingham. One of the lessons with this map was to introduce what a grid and index is. On the two pages following this map the girls had 10 questions total to answer using this map and a challenge to complete.
Massachusetts map
Waterways of the U.S. This map is from week 13 and covers vocabulary such as gulf, land form, waterway, and more. A few examples of the questions that went along with this map are;
1) Which states does the Arkansas river run through?
2) Which four kinds of waterways are shown on the map?
3) Which two states share the Columbia River?
This map of California introduces what a tourist map is.
Both of my girls have enjoyed doing these lessons. The lessons seem to bring about just the right amount of fun and interest to the topics covered and they are short and sweet which makes doing them every day doable. While I tend to sway away from workbook type lessons as much as possible, I do believe that using a workbook or lessons such as the ones offered in this book are vital when laying a good solid foundation with a topic such as map skills. I have noticed that both of my girls are gaining a good foundation in map skills and reading maps from these lessons and that very much pleases me. We pulled out a map of our state the other day and they were able to recognize, locate, and read key parts of the map as a result of the lessons that they have been covering in this book.
To purchase Geography 3 click, HERE.
If you are unfamiliar with Timberdoodle then I would highly encourage you to hop on over to their website and check it out. They are one of our families favorite homeschool companies and have been for years now. They offer a wealth of products/curricula to assist homeschooling families in the education of their children. Timberdoodle is one of the first places that I turn too when in search of a product for a specific subject/area in our school.
A HUGE Thank-you to Timberdoodle for the opportunity to review Geography 3 from Evan Moor. As a member of Timberdoodle's Blogger Review Team I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review on this blog. No other compensation was received. All opinions on this blog are my own.
