What's Next?

 We began the year studying the basics of Geography. Topics such as note taking skills, the 5 themes of geography, latitude and longitude, and general navigation around a globe have been discussed. The class will next move on to various types of map projections, disecting atlases, and then landforms and waterways. The basics of economies will be talked about including supply and demand, trading and governments types. We hope to begin exploring Europe by November.

On to Europe! We've studied the basics of geography and now have our foundation from which to study the individual continents. We will start in Europe just in time for the holiday season...Europe has many countries rich in culture and tradition and will be an intersesting place to start. We will discover the various landforms and water features Europe has to offer and also discuss the various cultures, ethnic groups, govenments, economies, traditions and major cities along the way. We will have guest speakers from around the world come to talk to us.

Wow, Europe was fun and enlightening! I hope that you all enjoyed our first continent. Now break out the sun screen and insect repellent as we will be traveling to the mighty continent of Africa! We will begin our adventure in the northern countries across the vast Sahara. This will be an eye opening experience for many of you who don't know much about Africa aside from the elephants and jungles...We will be working our way southward down the continent of Africa.

Can you believe it? We are finishing up Africa on April 11th! The Africa presentations have been awesome. The students have workied very hard on them. Sometimes group work can be tricky to coordinate. Soon we will be on to Asia! The continent of Asia will be very different than Europe and Africa...Get ready to commence upon a journey that is both entertaining and eye openning!

We've just completed our studies of the Middle East. The students will next be discussing China, India, Japan and Southeast Asia including the island nations of the South Pacific. Asia will be concluded by the end of May and June will be dedicated to South America, Australia ("the land down under..."), our Build-a-Country presentations and building our atlases. Where did the year go? It seemed like yesterday the kids were "...itty bitty budding geographers" and now they're practically ready for the 7th grade!!!