5 Days of ... Making Geography Fun- Day 2: Postcard Swaps

Welcome back to the 5 Days of Making Geography Fun posts, my small part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew's 5 Days of...Blog Hop. If you missed yesterday's post, I shared about our Interactive Town Map, if your child enjoys hands-on activities I encourage you to check it out. 

Today I would like to share another fun way we have focused on geography.  We have participated in a few different postcard swaps through the years. When the girls were younger we found a blog that was organizing a postcard exchange. We started exchanging some postcards with others and when we recieved the postcards we attached them to the wall around our world map. We used yarn to show where they came from. This exchange was a bit random and we also swapped overseas.  

A bit later I found a swap that was exchanging just in the United States. This was actually my favorite swap. Once every state had someone signed up we started sending postcards out to each other.  Each week 2 people were to send out postcards from their state to everyone else in the swap. Yes, that meant we were sending out 49 postcards at once. However, that also meant we were getting 2 postcards each week. That was the theory anyway, there were  couple of states we never received, but all in all it was a great experience.  I enjoyed the way it was organized. The order we received the postcards was in the order the states joined the union. That made it possible to sign up to use about.com's state study. 

When we received the postcards we located the state on the map, then we colored some state symbols, such as the flower and bird, along with the flag to put in a scrapbook. 

Last summer I decided it would be fun to spend some time on geography again as it had been a couple of years. We put our My Father's World Curriculum aside as planned and had some fun with some more swapping (along with some other geography fun that I will be sharing tomorrow). I discovered a wonderful Facebook Group called  Homeschool Swapping Adventures.  Each month we can comment on threads to find homeschool families who would like to swap postcards, along with other things. The last time I participated we were able to make plans to swap with 10 different families. I again decided to try to get postcards for each state. This time around, when we received the postcard we colored in the state on a United States outline map.

As I mentioned yesterday, there are many more insightful posts to be found. Here is the link to the main post on the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog where you can find a list of everyone who is sharing. To get you started, I invite you to stop by these blogs:

Dawn @ Guiding Light Homeschool ~ Homeschooling with Excessive Energy
Lexi @ Lextin Academy ~ The Homeschool Dad, CEO
Lynn @ Ladybug Chronicles ~ Organizing Your Home and School
Cristi @ Through the Calm and Through the Storm ~ Homeschooling Thankfulness
Melissa@ Mom's Plans ~ Historical Field Trips
Adena @ AdenaF ~ Mnemonics
Amy @ Homeschool Encouragement ~ Lego Learning
Erin @ For Him and My Family ~ Record Keeping

Summer Learning Fun: Swapping Adventures

We have officially put aside our My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum until the middle of August when we will again start back up. We are taking the summer to relax and do some fun activities. Of course, we are always learning. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we were going to be participating in some fun swapping adventures through the Facebook group, Homeschool Swapping Adventures to help learn a little bit about the different states. We have since sent out and received our June postcards and are working on our July postcards.

These are the postcards we sent.

These are the postcards we have received so far.

Here the girls are coloring in the corresponding states on their USA maps. 

In addition, we finally got our Flat Travelers sent out to their host family. We are eagerly awaiting the travelers we are going to host. 

 I made little name tags for them. I just attached them with some tape.

I included a journal for the host family to fill out and we slid them into the envelope.

Off they go to Tennessee.

I am linking to:

And a couple of new linkies:

M is for Map Skills for Young Children

In the past I have attempted doing some map skills with the girls through a map of our town and a postcard exchange. I didn't realize it has been nearly 3 years since we attempted this! I had so many plans, but they were never seen all the way through. So, I have some new plans, starting this summer and hopefully continuing into the school year. 

But first, let me share a quick reminder of what we did 3 years ago. We had made a map of our town. I believe I found a map online at mapquest.com or some similar site. I used that to make a map of our town in a file folder. Then we went around town taking pictures of landmarks, such as the library, the bridge and the store. I printed 2 copies of the pictures small enough to fit on the map. One of each picture was glued onto the map and then we used the laminated duplicates to match landmarks as we walked around town. 

Here is what the map looked like:

That's our town, 1 mile around.

Here the girls are finger walking around town. 

(They have grown up so much. Tabitha had only just turned 3 in this picture and Amelia was 1 1/2)

I thought a familiar area would be the best place for the children to learn map skill concepts. Looking at the ages of Harold and Hannah, it looks like it is time to pull out that map again. 

We moved on from the town map to the map of the United States. The same year as was mentioned above, we became involved in a Post Card Exchange. We sent post cards to one family per state and throughout the next several months we received post cards from the same families. I actually still have them stored, but we never did as much with them as I was going to because I had Hannah as a newborn/infant/toddler...you get the idea. We were going to do a state a week and learn about the state bird, state tree, state capital, etc. We were going in the order that the states were admitted to the Union. Unfortunately, I don't think we got to New Jersey. When I talked to the girls a week ago they didn't even remember doing any of it.

Then, two years ago we also did a little work with the globe while using the Five in a Row Curriculum. We would put our story disks on the globe where the story took place. And every once in a while the globe will get pulled out to be used. But we are going to be a little more deliberate in our learning about different states and countries now. 

I have joined a Facebook Group called Homeschool Swapping Adventures which is a group for families educating their children at home. There are several different kinds of swapping adventures:

• Birthday Card Exchanges
• Pen Pals Lists
• Flat Traveler Swap
• Post Card Swap
• Geo-Box Swap

We are participating in the Flat Traveler and the Post Card Swap, plus the girls are going to have pen pals. If you have ever heard of Flat Stanley you may get the idea of the Flat Traveler. My older children had done an activity with Flat Stanley when they were in school, they had to find someone to send him to and the host was to keep him for a while and then send him back with souvenirs to help learn about some place new. We are making our own flat travelers and are going to send them out as a sibling group to a family who will send us their flat traveler(s). We will take them places with us and write down in a journal what we do and where we go. We will also send information about our state and local area. Oh, we will take some pictures too. 

Here are the children making their flat travelers.

We will be sending them off to a family shortly and can't wait for the traveler we are hosting to arrive. As we participate in this we will be learning about the different states. We will also be learning about different states as we again receive post cards from different states. I am hoping to get one from every state by the time we are done. The girls will be coloring in the state on a United States map. I found one that has the state boundaries and the states' names printed in each, but other than that it is just a black and white blank map. 

And I found some notebooking pages for us to fill in with some more details. 

Additionally, we are going to be reviewing the book Global Art for the Schoolhouse Review crew, so we will be learning about different cultures around the world. I plan to have the girls find the country we are focusing on with the globe and we will read some books centered around children in the country, if I can find some. Finally, we will try to make a traditional meal from each country. I'm thinking that will make a great Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen time. 

This will be the majority of what we are doing this summer. I'm sure there will be some other Review Crew things to keep us busy and some lapbooks are a possibility. The books that we read will count toward the girls time for Summer Reading Program, so we are just about all set.

What are your plans to keep your children learning this summer?

I am linking this up to:

Postcard Swap Geography Lesson: Delaware (finally)

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It has been a while since I posted about our postcard swap.  Way back in March, I believe.  There is a reason for that.  We haven't done anything with our postcards since sending out our cards back in March.  I wasn't real brilliant when I signed up for the swap.  Who signs up to do something new when they are due to have a baby the week it starts up.  I figured it was a good thing that Pa postcards needed to be sent out the first week because I could get my obligation out of the way and just enjoy the influx of cards.  We have enjoyed the sporadic delivery of postcards, but I haven't had time to do anything with them while trying to take care of Hannah.  I realized I wouldn't be able to organize and prepare the lessons right away, but I figured we'd be a few weeks behind at the most.  Then when summer rolled along I thought I would get the lessons started up then.  Nope, nope and nope again.  As I kept procrastinating I decided we would start up at the beginning of the school year.  Even though the about.com email lessons on the states that we are using do 2 a week (and we have been receiving 2 a week following the same schedule, order the states joined the union) we will be tackling one at a time.  I can't speak for what the future holds, but we were successful in starting up this week.

Okay, that was a long introduction to this post.  I do want to share the pictures we took back in March when we were preparing for this postcard swap.

These are the postcards we found over at the deer park

Here we are addressing them and adding our little blurb

(I had actually made my info a little more personal than some others have.  Being the first ones to send out I wasn't sure what others would do and I figured trivia facts could be found online so I wrote about our neck of the woods here in hilly, windy-road rural Pa where we meet up with the frequent white tail deer and occasional turkey or bear.  I also mentioned Pa has its own Grand Canyon.)

Then we mailed them out:

Fast forward 5 months.  We are now officially starting school and I have a schedule of what I want to do each day of the week (I am still tweaking it to see what will work, especially with Little Miss Demanding,).  Wednesday will be geography day.

We look at the postcard we have received and find the state on the map

Tabitha helping Amelia find Delaware

Then we color the state on our United States of America outline map

(the postcard said it well, Delaware is small but wonderful)

Then the girls colored their State Bird and Flower coloring page.

Tabitha plans on finishing this up tomorrow

This is one of many printables found at the homeschooling.about.com email course 

"Our 50 Great States"

In the lessons you can find out about state birds, flowers, mottos, trees, insects, songs and many more trivia facts.  There are quizzes and recipes too.

I picked 4 different things I wanted to focus on and found pictures on Google.  The girls will cut them out and glue them to there Delaware page.

(the flower, the bird, the seal and the outline)

We also added a piece of yarn to be able to locate Delaware.

As the state flower is the peach blossom we had peaches with lunch.

If you would like to see what others are doing to learn about geography, head on over to Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn and check out the carnival that Debbie hosts.