We started back to school yesterday and I decided we both needed to learn more geography. Specifically, I wanted us to learn the location of major countries, rivers, mountain ranges, etc. I opened up a FREE PDF file I had saved called Globalmania which is created by Knowledge Quest.
One of the sites Globalmania takes you to is called Seterra (photographs are of Seterra). It is a wonderful geography 'game' where you loctae countries or cities or flags... whatever you'd like to work on. We started with the European countries yesterday. My goal was to have her learn about 15 "major" countries - but we have BOTH learned ALL of the European countries... in just 2 days!!!
Now we are working on the US states. Basically, the screen starts with all of the states (or countries) in green. If you get the question right on the first try, it turns WHITE. If you get it on the second try, it turns LIGHT YELLOW. If you get it on the third try, it turns DARK YELLOW. And, if you miss it on all 3 of your tries, it turns RED. (This was Alex's first try on the US states.)
What makes it so fun is that it lists the "Top Ten" scores after each game on that computer. And, you can write as much as you want. You don't have to just write your name (like "Dana"). You can write, "Yippee!!! I'm getting so fast! :-)" or "That's Dana's best score EVER!!!" Can you see how fun that is???
The "Top Ten" is what is keeping us so hooked on this game. In fact, we are both now making 100% on the European countries, but you can go up on the list by getting FASTER!!! Alex is loving this so much that she got up early today and stayed up late tonight playing!
For the sake of variety and to make sure we aren't just memorizing that particular map, here are 2 other games we've been playing and really like:
- Sheppard Software - this one also offers information about each country and includes some city-states not on Seterra
- Lizard Point - this one also includes the city-states (link is to European countries)
5 comments:
Thanks for the heads up on the freebie, Globalmania. I already downloaded it and I am sure will enjoy getting some ideas from it.
Blessings
diane
We love Seterra and have been using it for quite some time! I do it with the kids and have learned so much.
Blessings, Melissa
Cade and I have used a site like this, I'm not sure if it's the same one, but we really enjoyed it, too. I really think it's important for kids to know where things are.
The funniest thing happened a few weeks ago. My mom came over for coffee and was talking about a friend who was going on a mission trip. And she asked Cade where the country was because she just assumed he, at 11 yo, would know, even if she didn't. And he did!
My kids used to prepare for the National Geography Bee and were strong contenders. There are great student activities at their website! I'm glad y'all are having fun learning geography. My kids also have a talking globe with games built in which has been fun.
Blessings,
Laurie
Thanks for the links, we are just doing South America in Geography in these days!
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