Preschool Geography ~Lesson One~

Up until now Eliza and I have mainly been working on letters, numbers, shapes, ya know, the basics.  So I decided that today was the day to branch out, to really start learning about the world.

I started by grabbing a few resources from the library, including:

• The Children's Atlas of the World
• The Giant Encyclopaedia of Theme Activities for Children 2 to 5
• Vanishing Cultures Frozen Land (story)
• A Day in the Life of Narwhals (story)
• Animal Atlas Animal Passport (DVD)
• Growing up Arctic (DVD)

We are really lucky to have a great library with lots of educational resources, but if you live somewhere that doesn't (or if you would rather not spend the gas money on getting to the library) you can always go online to find some really great materials.

Typically with my home preschool I like to keep it short and simple.  I find that the more you try to force learning the harder it can be for a toddler to absorb what you are trying to teach them, so my lesson plans are usually no longer than 30 minutes long, and they go something like this...

• Song (right now we are doing a days of the week song)
• Overview, talk about what they will be learning
• Letter/Number/Word tracing
• Fun Facts
• Coloring Page
• Activity
• Story

Today I had the Atlas open to two pages depicting the North/South Poles and the animals who live there.

We had a lot of fun looking and talking about all of the animals, we even did a fun game I Spy ;p. Next I showed Eliza the coloring page that I drew up for her (please feel free to laugh at my drawing). We talked more about the North/South Poles in reference to where we live on the planet.  It was a "rough" drawing to say the least, but she got the idea.  If you would rather not draw up a coloring page, again you can find one online and print it out.

After finishing the coloring page we made Snowy Owls.  To make Snowy Owls you will need the following:

• 1 paper plate per owl
• Stapler
• Scissors
• 3 yellow/orange triangles (we used some old fleece fabric, you can use construction paper or you can just crayons)
• Glue
• 2 black buttons per owl (or again you can color them on)

Follow the  instructions to create your own Snowy Owl.  The pictures wouldn't line up exactly how I wanted, but you can see the instructions.  First you fold, then staple, cut the wings, add the fringe, last glue on the eyes, beak and ears.

Your owl should come out looking something like this...

After making our Snowy Owls we read the story about the Narwhals.  We plan on watching the Arctic DVD tonight after dinner.

That completes lesson one in Preschool Geography. Thanks for reading!