Mommio: World Geography Unit Study

Each school day I meet with all six older toes at 11:00 to teach the unit study lesson.  We are working on World Geography using the Trail Guide To World Geography. This week we are focusing on Central America.  Here is what we did in our unit study today.  The first thing we always do is practice four vocabulary words for the day.  I mix up hard SAT type words with easier words so that we are getting all the learning levels.  Lately I have been using Word Of The Day books, and today they were easy. Here are the four words we discussed today.

After Word Of The Day I read to the kids from a book that goes with our study.  We have been reading a lot of very interesting travel stories from the Book Of Marvels. But today we read a short fictional book about a boy growing up in Guatemala.

We also took a quick look at the book I have asked the kids to read on their own for unit this week.

Then it was time to team up and answer our geography card questions for the day.  This has, by far, been the kids' favorite part of this unit study.  The groups are: Kiki and I, Gabe and Marney, Mason and Ava, and Connor is on his own.  They are each given about four index cards with questions to answer about whatever area of the world we are studying that day and then they have about 15 minutes to use an atlas, the internet and the dictionary to find their answers.

The questions are sometimes simple and sometimes quite difficult. Here are a few samples from today.

Then we all get back together and share our answers.  Afterward the cards get added to our growing World Geography wall.

Then it is on to our map labeling for the day.  Today we started on new maps since we have moved onto Central America.  They had to label several things on their maps today without me, helping each other to find the correct places.  Here's Mason's map for today-

After a break for lunch we continued our unit study with an art project and a cooking project.  For art we have been using this book-

And today we made mola patterns.  A mola is a type of embroidered blouse that women in Central American wear.  The patterns are often outlines of animal shapes filled in with other patterns.  The kids made theirs by using glue and yarn.

Our Guatemalan dinner is cooking...and it smells great!  Watch for our cooking post later.