"Buy me a map!"

We've been studying U.S. and World Geography all year using Mapping the World by Heart. This curriculum has some drawbacks and is not exactly what I thought it would be. HOWEVER, we have stuck to our study and are nearly done studying the geography of the world.

One benefit of doing this intensive study is that we've learned that James, age 13, loves maps! When I went to the homeschool convention a couple weeks ago, he had a request. "Bring me back a blank map!" He wanted a large map he could label.

So, I found a lovely large two-sided laminated map for him - world on one side, US on the other. Armed with a colorful set of permanent markers and a fine-tipped black Sharpie, he has (completely on his own) worked on labeling and coloring these maps. FOR FUN!

"It's hard to draw on a grapefruit."

To illustrate the difficulties of translating the realities of a spherical world into a flat 2D map, Mapping the World by Heart suggests drawing a map on a grapefruit and then trying to peel the grapefruit in one big piece and laying it flat. Here are some photos of our experience trying out this lesson.

I think they managed to comprehend the basic concept - a sphere doesn't translate to a flat map.

"History" Plans Complete

Unlike the LAST subject, I LOVE history!!

That said, I've put "history" in quotes in my post title, because we aren't doing actual "history" this year. This year we are doing GEOGRAPHY!

I wrote last summer about Mapping the World by Heart. But like most of my ambitious summer plans, it didn't happen. So this will be our social studies topic this year. The goal is for the kids to be able to draw detailed world and U.S. maps by heart. So, we'll give it a try!  All of the kids will do this.

If we complete that before the year is over, we will pick back up with Mystery of History 3, which we used last year and got partway through.

David (my senior) has completed his two history credits - American History and World History. The mapping class above will be the "geography" portion of his requirement. He did his Civics (Government) requirement last year. That just leaves Economics. So, we will be doing a book study on Economics using these three books - The Cartoon Introduction to Economics Volume 1: Microeconomics, A Bluestocking Guide to Economics, and Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?. These three books and the accompanying writing I will assign, along with the Financial Peace for Teens class (Dave Ramsey) that David took three years ago (or so) will complete his Economics credit.  I considered having Emily (10th grade) do this work along with David, but I don't think she's ready to master the content.

Mapping the World by Heart

One of the things I am going to do with the kids this summer is Mapping the World by Heart. I've been reading about this curriculum for years, and a discount buy on Homeschool Buyer's Co-op induced me to purchase it for this summer. Our co-op was planning to do this as a class, but the course didn't make the cut after member voting.

Here's an introductory video to the curriculum.


In case you don't have the patience to sit through the video, the goal of the program is to teach kids to draw detailed maps by heart. Suzy is a bit young for the program, as it is designed for grades 5-12, but she could do it again when she's older if need be.

So, check back at the end of summer for our completed maps. I've offered to pay the kids for their maps in order to make the geography time more palatable. Until then, here are a couple samples of maps done by middle school students (more samples HERE):