Social Studies Summer Series Part 1: How to Teach Geography Skills

Kirsten 0:07

This is the social studies teacher podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm Kirsten, the southern teach, an educator and mom who is passionate about all things social studies. I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.

Kirsten 0:45

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast. This is the first of a brand new five part series that we're going to be chatting about. And it's called the s s summer series. So we're going to be thinking about how to teach a variety of social studies skills throughout the month. That is our focus. This week's topic is all about geography skills. So I'm going to just share with you some tips on how to make geography fun and understandable for students in upper elementary, as well as some activity ideas.

Kirsten 1:28

Geography isn't just about maps skills, it's about understanding how our world works and how people fit in it. Teaching geography to third, fourth and fifth graders means laying the groundwork and foundation for a deeper understanding of how everything is connected. So today, let's go ahead and dive into some simple ways to make geography fun and understandable for students.

Kirsten 1:52

The first tip is to start with the basics. Start by introducing basic geography concepts, like what is a map, what is the continent, oceans, directions, cities, states, use maps and globes to help students visualize these ideas, and get hands on with exploring. An idea I have for this tip is to have students create their own maps of imaginary continents, including features like mountains, rivers, and cities. This activity idea actually goes really well with a project I do have called Create a country, and they can make up their own identity for their own continent, and not just a continent, but a country and they can put in a government and the history of that country. So it's basically a creative country project. It's really fun. I've had a lot of great feedback from my own personal students have utilized it as well as teachers.

Kirsten 2:49

The second tip is to make it relevant. Connect geography to students' lives by talking about local geography, local landmarks, and what makes their community unique. Help them see how geography can affect their daily lives. So what you could do is do a walking tour of your local school or local area around the school parks that you might have near the school. And you can note important landmarks and geographical features. Along the way, you can also make this a field trip and find, you know, maybe at the park or just some local landmark that you might have, that has important history or meaning.

Kirsten 3:30

The third tip is to learn about different cultures, introduce students to cultures from around the world, use stories, videos, and even guest speakers to show them how diverse our world really is. You can host a cultural fair, where students research and present information about different countries, including their geography, customs, and traditions. This is something that I actually did myself as a ninth grade student. This was in high school in our geography course, our geography class, we talked about a different region, I think it was like North America. And then after this big unit about North America, we would have this cultural fair or like this fair, where we got to bring in recipes and food and posters and all this stuff related to different countries in North America. And I think it also encompass Central America, because I think, I mean, there's only three countries in North America. So I think there was a little bit more, but the whole idea was that as we talked about different regions around the world, we at the end of that unit had a culminating cultural fair, where we got to bring in different we got to showcase our learning about different recipes and all of that. And of course, my go to was making a dish from that specific region of the world. That was my favorite thing to do.

Kirsten 4:50

The fourth tip I have is to use technology, bring technology to life with digital tools, like interactive maps. I mean, Google Maps is our friend here. Virtual tours if you want to do that these can make learning more fun and engaging for students. So one really cool thing to do is to use Google Earth to explore famous landmarks and geographical features from around the world, allowing your students to take virtual field trips without ever leaving the classroom. And you can even make it fun by starting off by finding your school seeing you know, how your school looks like from Google Earth, you can just type in the address of your school, have them type in their home, then move on to other fun local places that they might like to frequent or maybe state landmark local landmark and then kind of broadening out to our actual world like different places like the Eiffel Tower, or the Pyramid of Giza, or finding the Great Wall of China finding fun, and very commonly known landmarks and features around the world. All right.

Kirsten 5:55

Tip number five is to encourage questions, foster curiosity by encouraging students to ask questions and explore topics on their own. Let them take charge of their learning and discover new things. Have a geography wonder activity, where students can ask questions about anything related to geography. And you could do this as a class or just do it in groups, and then research and discuss the answers together, that could be really fun to do.

Kirsten 6:24

Kirsten 7:54

All right, tip number seven is to practice map skills teach students how to read maps effectively, this is very important, show them how to use symbols, legend scales, give them plenty of practice with map based activities. So an activity I do I have here for you is to create a scavenger hunt, where students can use a Map to navigate their way around the school or local area. And they are locating specific landmarks or points of interests is a great beginning of the school activity, especially maybe just kind of for fun is like either they create their own maps of their school, or you can have them go on some type of scavenger hunt where they're finding certain even making clues to find certain objects around the school and giving them hints of okay, well, like I'm sure by this time, if they're at the school for a while, if they're third or fourth or fifth grade, they're going to know where the library is, or the cafeteria is and you can kind of create clues to point to those specific well known spaces.

Kirsten 8:59

So to sum up this episode, teaching geography to third, fourth, and fifth graders can actually be exciting and rewarding. By keeping it simple, making it relevant and encouraging exploration, you can help students develop a deeper understanding of the world and their place in it. With a little creativity and enthusiasm. Geography can become a favorite for upper elementary students to help support you with this, in addition to this, hopefully informative episode, I do want to share with you a resource I have related to geography. And those are my geography, daily passages. This is something I created a couple years ago, I believe I when I first published it was in 2022. There's a variety of topics related to geography. And I think it's really valuable, especially if you don't have a lot of time to teach social studies in general, or you're trying to like, find simple ways to put in social studies. And maybe you might have some type of curriculum, or you might be utilizing my guided curriculum. But you also want something to kind of reinforce reading comprehension, and just kind of just start the day like a warm up for the day. So that's kind of where my Smart and Simple Social Studies daily review comes in. It includes for geography 12 topics for 12 weeks, 48, passages, 12 quizzes for each topic. And there's also a unit pacing guide included. So there's a lot of really great stuff, there's a glossary for key vocabulary words. And the topics range from map skills to regions of the US to cities of Texas, comparing regions, effects of natural hazards, adapting and modifying the environment. So there's a lot of great topics there. And I will link this listing that I have for you, just so you can get an idea of what is exactly included. This pairs well with my Smart and Simple Social Studies, guided curriculum, whether you're doing third, fourth and fifth grade, this is meant to be for multiple grade levels. So really, even if you're not in Texas, this could be valuable for you. So that is something that I'm going to link in the description in the show notes so you can take a look at it for further references.

All right, so next week in the summer series, we're going to talk about one of my favorite domains and that is history. So I will talk to you again next week. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.