Geography and Science combined unit

As this was our last week of Classical Conversations, the question is now entering my mind, "What will we do once Classical Conversations is over?"

CC is a 24 week program, so I did 6 weeks before it started and will now do 6 weeks after to make a 36-week school year. The first 6 weeks we just did some basic skills review and fun reading, so what will we do for the last 6 weeks? We will be focusing on some skills for each child, but I also want to review some of the work we've done in CC.

One area I'd like to review and expand on in particular, is geography. I've come up with a combined geography review and science/nature unit. Here is the basic plan:

I'll use this great little Usborne book (Living World Encyclopedia):



I'll also purchase a large, laminated, black-line map on which we'll mark each of the areas we study.

Each week we'll cover a different climate/environment and then review the geographical locations that host this type of environment.

Week 1 - Grasslands
Living World Encyclopedia (LWE) p. 38-39
Geography to review: all continents (grasslands occur on every continent, except Antarctica)

Week 2 - Deserts
LWE p. 50-57
Geography: Middle Eastern countries (Iraq, Iran, Cyprus, Syria, Turkey) and the "-stans" (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Usbekistan, Kazakhastan)

Week 3 - Temperate forests
LWE p. 58-65
Geography: continental European countries (and some features: Appenine Peninsula, Balkan Peninsula, Iberian Peninsula; and some capitals: London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona)

Week 4 - Northern evergreen forests, Polar regions
LWE p. 66-69, 72-77
Geography: Scandinavian countries and features (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands), Baltic Europe (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland),Siberia

Week 5 - Mountains, Rivers, Lakes
LWE p. 78-85, 90-93
Geography: all mountains we've learned (Ural Mountains, Carpathians, Caucasus, Alps, Pyrenees), all seas we've learned (North, Mediterranean, Adriatic, Baltic, White, Black, Caspian, Aral, Arabian, and the rivers (Seine, Rhine, Danube, Po, Elbe, Volga)

Week 6 - Tropical Rain Forests
LWE p. 96-109
Geography: SE Asia (Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines, Guam), Central America (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama)

Week 7 - Islands
LWE p. 34-7
Geography: Carribean (Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico), other islands (Canary Islands), oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, Indian)

I know this is longer than my intended 6 weeks. But that is Ok, this is fun study - they will be happy doing this even after our "official" school year is over. Right? Right!

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