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March 23, 2007 - by Terri Johnson,
author
of Homeschooling ABCs (www.homeschoolingabcs.com
) -
dedicated to helping new homeschoolers gain the
confidence and the necessary skills to successfully teach
their children at home.
My Top Geography Websites
And They're Free!
Okay, I am having way too much fun! The Old Schoolhouse
Magazine asked me to locate the best free geography sites on
the web and I think that I have done just that. I have come up
with 17 great sites for helping you teach your children
geography while having fun at the same time. And the best part
is that they are all free. Let me tell you about these great
tools for learning. By the way, the links are in no particular
order of preference, so just click on what sounds interesting
to you.
Would you prefer this information packaged in an easy
step-by-step curriculum that will guide your child in learning
world geography in as few as 7 months? Download our
complimentary Globalmania ebook here -
www.knowledgequestmaps.com/globalmania.htm. Enjoy!
ONLINE GAMES AND QUIZZES
1. Seterra is free software that you can download onto your
computer and play many geography based games. Locate countries,
capitals, cities and more. Take quizzes and test your
knowledge. The software will record the highest scores, so you
can keep playing to get your score higher and higher. Great
tool for your kids and yourself - http://www.wartoft.nu/software/seterra/
2. Sheppard Software has provided many free and fun to play
geography games at their website - http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm.
There are various levels of play so that your beginners and
advanced students alike can find something to hold their
interest. You do need to have Flash Player 6 or higher on
your computer to be able to play these games, but no other
downloading is necessary. The instructions are minimal, so
it takes a few minutes to get the hang of the games in some
instances (or at least it did for me!). Also, they do have
other games across the curriculum, so feel free to check out
their science and vocabulary games as well - plus many
others!
3. If you or your children like puzzles, then you will love
this website! At this website - http://www.yourchildlearns.com/geography.htm -
you can either play with the on-line puzzle maps, or you can
download them to your own computer. If you would rather not
download them, here is the direct link to the online map
puzzles - http://www.yourchildlearns.com/map-puzzles.htm.
These are a lot of fun and a great learning tool for kids of
all ages (yes, even adults!).
4. Take National Geographic’s Geography Bee quiz! These
questions can be fairly tough, but you get a second and even
third chance to get them right (there are only 3 choices per
question) thereby allowing you to KNOW the answer, which you
are unlikely to forget. Also, the questions are new every day,
so you can play every day and get new questions to answer. Very
fun! Here’s the website - http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geobee
5. Test your knowledge of world or regional geography with this
fun quiz at http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/. A
great aspect of this game is that children can see
improvement quickly, even by their second round at the same
quiz. Builds confidence and knowledge!
6. This quiz site - http://www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/geography.asp
- allows you to not only learn about the countries and
capitals of the world, but also the mountains and bodies of
water. If you need a hint, or the answer, it comes in the
form of a pop-up, so you may need to disable your pop-up
blocker. This site seems to add new games frequently. Great
learning tool!
7. Another great quiz site - http://www.actionquiz.com/quiz.php?trivia=geography.
Here you can play against other kids and teachers and see if
you can win. You do not have to use your real name (no
reason to, so don’t!) and the game uses a pop-up window. So,
if your computer blocks pop-ups, you either have to disable
that feature to play, or if you get a message that allows
you to open the pop-up, you can go about it that way.
Warning: this is a fun game to play and rather addicting.
After playing five times against some strong opponents, I
finally won!
8. This website - http://www.geosense.net - also allows you
to play alone of against another player. You are asked to
not only identify countries of the world but cities as well.
It is quite challenging and also very addicting. I played
six rounds against my opponent and only won twice (and I
thought I knew my geography like the back of my hand -
reality check!). If you do not mind that your scores are not
recorded in their log, you can play as a guest. Or create a
login ID to keep track of your scores and establish an
identity at this site. (Parental
caution: there is a chat element on the home
page which would be best to avoid for your younger children
certainly, and probably for your older children as well. I
recommend that you navigate past the home page before
turning the computer over to your child.)
9. This quiz site - http://www.garyradley.com/games - has both
“find” games and “quiz” games giving your students a
well-rounded familiarity with the countries of the world. My
only trouble with these particular games was that it was
sometimes difficult to click on the correct country because
the hand spread over more than one country area. But
overall, this is a great site to round out your online
geography games.
GREAT REPORT SITES
Atlapedia and CountryReports are two great sites for general
information. If your child or student needs to find some facts
on a given country or view/print some maps for a particular
region of the world, Atlapedia is a great all purpose website
for gathering information for research papers, etc. - The
website is http://www.atlapedia.com/index.html. Full
color physical and political maps are available. Also,
CountryReports lets you drill down on a world map to the
country you are interested in and gives you some great facts
and information and maps of that area. The website is
http://www.countryreports.org/.
JUST MAPS - BUT REALLY COOL MAPS!
Do your kids like all kinds of maps - satellite, physical,
political, even weather? Then they will enjoy creating their
own maps at this site - http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/index.html.
Would you like to see what the earth looks like a night as seen
from space. This view of the world was taken from photos of the
earth at night from a satellite. The earth is lit only from the
city lights of civilization. Spectacular! - http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html
Okay, everyone knows about Google Earth, right? This is an
incredible piece of software that is taken from actual
photographs of the earth. In fact you can zoom right down into
your own backyard. Mind-boggling! The software needs to be
downloaded onto your computer. It is located here - http://earth.google.com/
FUN VIDEO SITES
Yes, this is one of my favorites! At this website - http://www.animatedatlas.com - you can
watch a five or ten minute video about the growth of our
nation. Superb and educational!
TEACHER RESOURCES
Are you in need of some worksheets to print out that will
reinforce the geography you are teaching to your students. Here
is a great site with lots of printables (my computer tells me
that is not a word, but I think you know what I mean) -
http://www.tlsbooks.com/geographyworksheets.htm.
This site gives you contact information of places where you can
receive free geography materials - http://www.ed.gov/pubs/parents/Geography/free.html
And don’t forget the free downloads available from Knowledge
Quest - just sign up for our
newsletter and we’ll send the information right over
to you.
This has been so exciting researching these free sites for you.
If these games are played often and these resources tapped into
and used, your students will gain tremendous knowledge and
retention in the realm of geography (SO WILL YOU!). And it will
be painless! That is the part I love! Have fun!
Source: http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/globalmania.htm
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