Creative Hands-On Geography: Exploring the World At Home

Hands-on geography has been a staple in our homeschool learning for years. This is a comprehensive exploration of all the benefits we’ve seen from this approach, and a complete list of the best ideas and options to get you started.

It is no secret that I am a huge advocate for hands-on learning. I have seen first hand in my own homeschool just how effective adding a multisensory approach can be in any child’s learning and especially for children with unique learning needs.

The Advantages Of Multisensory Learning

There are several key reasons why hands-on, multisensory learning works so well for learners of all ages.

Engagement and Motivation

• Active Participation: Hands-on activities keeps learners actively involved. This increases the fun and decreases resistance. .
• Intrinsic Motivation: When kids physically engage in a task, they are also often more motivated to learn.

Making Real-World Connections

• Practical Application: Hands-on activities can make abstract ideas more concrete and understandable. Engaging in a real life demonstration or interaction with the learning helps children see how concepts apply in the real world,
• Immediate Feedback: When engaged in multi-sensory learning, learners are able to get instant feedback on their actions. This increases their understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

Increased Retention

• Kinesthetic Learning: Engaging multiple senses (touch, sight, movement) helps reinforce memory. The more senses involved, the stronger a child’s ability to remember the learning.
• Active Learning: Studies show that doing something physical and/or something creative helps to cement the information in long-term memory.

Development of Critical Thinking Skills

• Problem Solving: Hands-on activities often involve solving problems and making decisions, which helps develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Creativity and Innovation: Engaging in hands-on projects encourages creativity and allows learners to experiment with different solutions.

Improved Accessibility for All Learning Styles

• Variety of Learning Styles: Not all kids learn the same way. Hands-on activities cater to kinesthetic learners and help reinforce visual and auditory learning styles.
• Interactive Learning: As I’ve learned in my own homeschool, activities that involve movement and manipulation help engage students who may struggle with traditional, more passive approaches.

Development of Fine and Gross Motor Skills

• Physical Coordination: Many hands-on activities develop fine and gross motor skills.
• Hand-Eye Coordination: Activities that require precise movements or handling learning manipulatives, flash cards, etc. help to improve hand-eye coordination.

There’s no doubt, incorporating hands-on activities into learning creates a much more engaging and effective educational experience. This has been true for us across every subject, but especially in learning geography!

Hands-On Homeschool Geography Activities

Even before I had my own children, I experienced the value of hands-on geography. When I was in the 7th grade, we had to make a salt map fora country study and share a popular dish. Mine was Italy.

To this day, I know more about Italy, it’s culture and it’s geography, than any other country outside of my own. I see now that this is because of the hands-on approach my teacher used.

It has been the same for my own children in our homeschool.

Here are my top recommendations for hands-on geography activities. These are based on how we incorporated geography into our daily learning.

1. Map Work

• Interactive Maps: Use a large world map or globe and mark different locations. Add stickers or pins for places you learn about. For example, my oldest loves cats and would draw a cat, and my youngest loves dogs and would draw a dog on their respective locales of study.
• Map Puzzles: Invest in world or country map puzzles to build and learn about different regions. This was an absolute favorite for my youngest!

2. Food and Cooking

• Cook Around the World: We prepared traditional dishes from different countries as we learned about them in books and in documentaries.
• Food Maps: Create a food map where you pin dishes to their country of origin.

3. Geography Games

• Board Games: Play geography-themed board games like “Ticket to Ride” or “Where in the World?”
• Online Quizzes: My oldest was a big fan of apps and websites with geography quizzes and challenges. GeoGuessr most of all!

4. Virtual Tours (tech for the win!)

• Explore with Google Earth: It’s possible to take virtual tours of famous landmarks and natural wonders using Google Earth or similar tools. I loved adding this into our learning.
• Museums and Historical Sites: The same is true for virtual tours of museums and historical sites around the world.

5. Interactive Learning Apps (more tech for the win!)

• Geography Apps: Speaking of tech, educational apps and games designed to teach geography have been a huge win for us. Both of my kids learned US geography with Stack the States!
• Augmented Reality (AR): There are new AR apps that bring geographic features and landmarks to life. This is the future of homeschooling, I’m sure!

While all of these options are a ton of fun and also helped my children comprehend and retain learning, it was an awful lot of work sometimes to find the resources and compile the supplies for this list.

That’s why I am excited to share with you an all-in-one resource for hands-on geography in your homeschool!

An All-In-One Approach To Hands-On Geography In Your Homeschool

The Landmark Kids is a monthly mystery geography kit designed for children primarily aged 7-12 (although I know my son would’ve enjoyed most of the activities and videos well into his teen years!).

SOLVE THE MYSTERY. EXPLORE THE WORLD.

Each kit is a new assignment, exploring a different country each month. In order to solve the mystery, learners crack puzzles, solve logic challenges, and decipher brain games.

This includes following intriguing clues, cooking recipes culturally specific to the location, info cards for hands-on learning, optional videos with QR codes, and even unique souvenirs from countries like Australia, Japan, and Moracco.

The Landmark Kids learning is super engaging as the learner solves the case while learning about geography, culture, history, language, food, animals, and more!

Landmark Subscription Kits include:

• A mystery case to solve

• 5 clues & 5 logic puzzles

• 6 cards with facts about cities

• A recipe from the location

• A souvenir to remember your trip!

• An Interactive map that includes QR codes with links to videos for each city

As I opened the box, I was impressed with how ALL the activities we’ve enjoyed over the years are already curated and together in one, easy to understand, very little work for mom package.

This kit is an all-in-one ticket to hands-on geography in your homeschool.

Try The Landmark Kids Subscription Kit In Your Homeschool

The good news is, now through August 31, 2024, you can take 15% off your Landmark subscription kit using coupon code Shawna.