Having fun learning Geography!!

We have been having a blast learning geography at our house. There are so many ways to have fun learning about things without having to fill in any workbook.




What had first gotten me really excited about geography in the last few months was my blogging. It installed a stat counter which has a graph that lets you see what countries people are visiting from. I would check it every so often and there would be people visiting from many different countries (I wasn't sure if they were really reading or just got to my blog on accident but no matter it has been fun for me to see them come.). Several times people have been from countries I had never even heard of or just didn't know where they were. The whole family got involved at looking them up on a map and sometimes finding out more about them. Ken really loves maps and he suggested that I hang a map up and start keeping track of the different places that visited.

So we hung this map next to the computer. Now whenever there is a new place that visits we highlight it. Ken, Mara and I have been the most involved in this activity but the boys have been a little as well.

A while later I was folding clothes (which I have to admit is not my favorite activity) and I decided to make it more interesting I would check the labels to see where they were made. I couldn't believe how many places they had come from. Mara came down to help me and we had a wonderful time finding out where our clothes had traveled from. We kept a list and afterwards went and found them on the map. This does slow down the folding of clothes a bit but it is quite interesting. One day we found clothes from 30 different countries!!

Another way that we very much enjoy learning geography is by getting to know people from other countries. One great way to do that is to get to know international university students. In our town there is program that helps families and students to get connected so that the student can have an American family. My parents got involved with this when I was a kid and now they help to run it. Our family is also involved. It has been such a great blessing to meet these students. We have fun having them in our home, they tell us about where they come from and often cook for us (Yummy!!!). To see an example of what we do you can visit my Christmas post.

We have been blessed to have quite a few attend church with us and have had the opportunity to tell many of them about the gospel. That has been super exciting.

There are many fun ways to learn geography, what have you done in your family?