What Is Geography For Kids

How Many Miles Away

Geography: What is it for?

We use our map of the world to talk about distance or time zones. Well get a ruler and say one inch = 1,000 miles, for example, and measure from place to place to try to figure out how many miles one is from another. This is good math practice, too. Sometimes my older daughter will use Barbies or LEGO figures to walk across the map on their journey.

Preparing For The Geography Bee

The National Geography Bee is for kids in the fourth through eighth grade. Kids can learn about the Bee and how to prepare. If your school is one of the 1,000+ that participate in the Geography Bee, the information and links in this article can help your students prepare.

This article teaches kids some of the important basics of geography and answers questions such as these:

What is geography?
How does geography differ from geology?
What do geographers do?

This page for kids includes a listing of fun facts about the planet earth such as these:

The size of the earth.
The number of countries on our planet.
The highest and lowest points on the surface of the earth.
The age of the earth.
And, more…

Children’s Books Set In Different Countries

There are plenty of childrens books for all ages that talk about different places on the globe. We’ve been reading a series called Living In. We have read the books about Australia, Italy, and Mexico so far. This series is great because it introduces a character who lives there and walks through their daily life, all while touching on the history, geography, and culture of those places.

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What Does Geography Study

What do we do when we study geography? We explore and learn about two main issues: places and people. There are two branches of geography, called physical geography and human geography:

physical geography;examines the nature and environment and with it, natural hazards and their effects for example what happens when a volcano erupts or where and why does flooding;occur

human geography;studies the effects of our activities on the planet and what living in our environments on the lives and activities of the people means, such as why people move from villages into towns or even migrate from country to country or what it happens when we exploit the earths resources or why we experience the effects of global warming

Geography Facts Quiz Anyone

Best Geography Apps and Games for Children

Let’s start with three geo facts quiz questions right here:

1. What is the name of the largest canyon in the world?

The Grand Canyon in Arizona/USA is the largest canyon in the world. Its steep sides have been cut out by the Colorado River for a length of more than 440km/270miles.

2. Which countries share the world’s longest international border?

The longest international border is between Canada and the USA. The building on the photo above is the Capitol in Washington D.C., the capital city of the United States of America. The border is 8,890 km/5,525miles long and borders 8 Canadian provinces/territories and 13 states in the USA.

3. What is the name of our planet’s largest hot desert?

The Sahara desert in Africa is the largest desert in the world. In fact, Sahara is only the largest HOT desert as the Arctic desert and the Antarctic desert are bigger, but are usually referred to as polar deserts.;

Fifty Nifty United States

My favorite, favorite, favorite song of all time for geography, though, is the Fifty Nifty United States song, which you can listen to in the video above. I learned this song in 5th grade , and it still gets stuck in my head from time to time. I decided to teach it to my older daughter when she was 4. After some resistance , one day she started reciting all 50 states to the tune of the song, and she has been doing so spontaneously ever since.

After singing that song for a few months and doing the United States puzzle for the past few years, she is now starting to sing the song and point to the states as she sings. She can name a few capitals from the capitals song, and I expect her to keep getting better as her reading also gets better.

Map puzzles help children learn and remember the geography of different countries.

How We Use Our Blow

Our globe cost me all of $6 the Learning Shop in Milwaukee. It is a blow-up beach ball globe, which often doubles as a soccer ball, volleyball, etc. in my house. Well pretend that if we hit it on one spot, we just created an earthquake in that country. If something gets spilled on it or were playing outside and it starts raining, we pretend its raining on our little globe, too.

We use our blow-up globe pretty often for some map games, and we reference it when we read books set in different countries . I would like to invest in a higher quality, real globe when they get older, but for now this one is working just fine.

Globes don’t need to be fancy. We have an inflatable globe like this one, and it has inspired a lot of educational games.

Especially with our globe, we play a lot of games.

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Geography Is A Subject Often Left Behind

So many parents, teachers, and schools are focused on teaching reading, math, and STEM. These subjects are all definitely important and play an integral part of overall learning. However, it seems these days that there has been a loss of focus on other subjects that also contribute to a well-rounded education.

Geographyboth an awareness of the physical features of Earth and knowledge of political boundaries and peopleis somehow getting lost in the shuffle. With so much pressure from above to get students to achieve higher test scores and to do progress monitoring at such frequent intervals, teachers are not usually to blame. They just dont always have time to touch this subject.

All About Cultural Geography

Learn Geography With Dr. Binocs | Compilation | Learn Videos For Kids

Geography isn’t all about mountains, bodies of water, and other physical features of the earth. With this article, you’ll learn about the human side of geography. You’ll learn how languages, economics, governmental structures, and even the arts are connected to the physical features of our world.

We hope these resources help you and your kids learn geography. Enjoy!

How To Boost Your Trivia Skills

If you want to increase your trivia skills then its important to be curious. Absorb as much new information as you can and develop a love of learning.

You can start by memorizing facts like state capitals, interesting information about a specific country, or just random facts. Overall, you want to keep up with the world and learn something new every day!

Another great way to boost your trivia skills is watching documentaries. Documentaries are a great visual way to learn new information. Once your curiosity starts increasing, research topics you enjoy and memorize facts you find interesting.

Geography Can Be Easy And Fun To Learn

My kids are five and one. So, no, they cannot name off every country or list every mountain range on Earth, but the five-year-old is on her way to having a pretty good basic understanding of what a continent, country, and state are and what the difference is between oceans, lakes, and rivers. Thanks to many of the ideas above that weve implemented, she can tell you the 50 United States in order and point to many of them on a map.

The one-year-old cant talk yet, but she participates in many of these activities. Its never too early to start! We probably spend only about 12 hours a week total on any of these activitiesand yet, I think theyve made a big difference.

As you can see, none of these ideas cost very much money or time to integrate into learning and play time at home. When you use any one of these ideas, however, I bet youll be surprised at how much your child retains. Learning doesnt have to be boring or feel like workwith a little conscious effort, making geography a regular part of your childs life can be easy and fun.

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How To Play Trivia

Trivia is an easy game to play on teams with a large group, with two people, or even by yourself! Start by grabbing your list of Geography Trivia questions and an answer key.

Take turns asking the trivia questions. To keep score, just keep a tally of the number of trivia questions each person or team gets correct. You can easily make it as competitive as you want!

Geography Trivia For Kids

Last Updated on March 2, 2021 by Michele Tripple

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Ready to learn and have fun? Help your kids get a jump start in geography and have fun while playing Geography Trivia for Kids!

In my house, we are always looking for our next challenge! Thats why we love playing trivia for kids on the daily. Whether its a round of animal trivia questions or football trivia, it always keeps my family entertained while they learn something new.

My kids love trivia so much that I decided to make Geography Trivia for kids to keep the fun going! We love the competition and seeing who can answer the most trivia questions correctly.

If you are looking for an educational and fun activity at home, then Geography Trivia for Kids is just what you need!

Fun Ways To Teach Geography To Kids At Home

Megan Machucho

I’m Megan, a freelance writer and mom of two little girls. I like to write about topics ranging from parenting to business to gardening.

As a parent, you can introduce your children to the important study of geography with fun songs, puzzles, and games that use maps and globes.

Activities That Have Worked For My Family

I am not a teacher and dont claim to be. The suggestions below are just some things weve tried at home that have worked. I think these ideas can carry over to other subjects as wellart, music, math, etc. They key is that they are all fun, and they dont feel like work.

Youll notice that none of these involve workbook pages, and most dont even involve pencil and paper. The more something feels like fun, especially for the little ones kindergarten age or younger, the more likely they will want to participate.

I also did not include any appsthe only screen time is some of the songs, and sometimes we just listen to those in the car or at bath time without the screen, although the animations in many of them are helpful.

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Why Is Geography Important For Kids

Obviously, we want our students to grow up as good local, national, and world citizens. ;We want them to question current events in places close to home, as well as far from anywhere they may have been.

That starts by learning major bodies of water, earth science , and even state capitals.

So much of physical geography and maps are tied into learning how to read a map with math skills. ;I distinctly remember measuring out the scales on a map to figure out how many actual miles were from point A to point B within the state of Ohio when I was in elementary school. ;Believe it or not, I have been hiking in places with no GPS signals, so that was a skill I was successfully able to translate to the real world as an adult myself.

Now, there are so many more great ways to learn about geography than having a simple lesson plan of measuring map scales. ;You can use geography games for kids, quizzes, fun facts, books, trivia, songs, videos, webquests, and other hands-on activities out there.

What Is A Topographical Map

Kids vocabulary – Geography – Nature – Learn English for kids – English educational video

Mapping is a crucial part of;earth science and are wonderful tools that help us find our way in a street, in a city, in a country, in fact, anywhere on the Earth. There are some maps that show different physical features of the Earth. These maps are called;topographic;maps. Topographic;maps use a particular type of line, known as a contour line, to depict different elevations on a map.

Geography Resources For Teaching Kids

Need some new activities to spice up your latitude and longitude related lessons? ;Here are a few to get your wheels turning.

Quizzes and Games:

While this example is honestly to see if you are smarter than a 5th grader, it could be a fun idea to have your students parents take the quiz with the children as a pre-assessment. ;Then take it again together after your unit or theme has been taught to see the improvement.

From the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, this interactive game has students practice finding the various 50 states on a United States map. ;

It also gives up-to-date state unemployment rate data too, which might be useful if you have older students and want to graph it or even discuss why some states would be much higher than others.

Sticking with the US map trend, I like how this game is an online jigsaw puzzle! ;You have to be able to add the pieces onto the map without having any type of lines .

It is a bit more advanced for those older or gifted students.

Shaking things up a little bit, there are some quizzes out there with a world focus too. ;This one has questions where the student has to choose the right country from a multiple choice list based on the question listed.

This option was pretty hard for me. ;It is only an outline of a country and 4 multiple choice options. ;After choosing the right option, it does give the quiz taker some interesting facts about that particular country which I found very interesting.

Printables:

Songs:

~Charity

Geography Factswhat You Should Know

If you have not done so yet, then now it’s the time. Start to go over to our ‘What is Geography’ section. There are some pretty awesome facts about geography for kids!

Then you surely want to know about the world’s geographical superlatives! We have some great kids geo questions for you and our geo trivia quiz…

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Activities To Supplement The Reading

After reading these books, I have my daughter point to that country on the globe and tell me a few things she learned. Many times, she remembers the food they eat and what they do for fun .

Although its not always feasible, you can also try an immersion activity after reading these booksthe best way I can think to do this is to go to a restaurant with authentic cuisine from the places you read about. Weve done this for Italy and Mexico, and I would like to do it for Russia, China, and India. Our learning is on a budget, so these nights will have to coincide with nights we would be eating out anyway!

You can try some strictly non-fiction books about these places, but Ive noticed that I get the best results if there is some kind of story involved, rather than just a list of facts.

An aerial view of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where we live.

Connecting With Space And Place

Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments. Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earths surface and the human societies spread across it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment and the way that locations and places can have an impact on people. Geography seeks to understand where things are found, why they are there, and how they develop and change over time.;Read More…

Tips And Tricks For Playing Geography Trivia For Kids

Whether you like to use trivia questions for fun or for competition, you are sure to learn something new. Make things more interesting by using a time limit. Or you can come up with some fun prizes that your kids can win for answering the most questions correctly. Prizes are a sure way to keep your kids motivated while playing geography trivia for kids.

To learn even more about geography, you can find a short clip or movie about one of the countries mentioned in geography trivia for kids and watch it together. Its a great way to bring geography to life!

Wooden Jigsaw And Floor Puzzles

There are plenty of geography puzzles available, ranging from wooden ones that very young kids can do, to more complex jigsaw puzzles. I have not yet gotten a wooden geography puzzle the one-year-old can do, but I plan on purchasing a continent one or a globe puzzle.

For my five-year-old, we have done both floor puzzles of the 50 states and smaller ones. She loves itshell beg me to do these with her, even though now she has a pretty good idea of what goes where. Again, these are great for an awareness of where continents, countries, or states go, depending on what map the puzzle depicts.

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