Whether you are a school teacher or a parent, you will find it far easier to teach kids geography if you make it fun.
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1. Play Board and Card Games
There are many great board and card games available which relate to Geography. Card games like the Borderline series are ideal to teach students the relative locations of places. Mindware has brought out two Brainbox games on geography - one on world geography and one on US geography. Both get the players to study pictorial clues about a country or state and then to answer questions based on what they can remember. This game can be played with many children at the same time and my geography class loved it!
2. Play CD Rom and Online Games
Children love computer games - so this an ideal way to slip in some teaching without them even realizing it. The Carmen Sandiego "Where in the World" and "Where in the USA" games were great favorites with my own kids when they were younger. They learned about places all over the world without even noticing they were learning.
And of course you can find a plethora of online games to challenge players of all different levels of geography knowledge. My family loves the ones on the Sporcle website, but if those are too hard, there are plenty of others to choose from.
3. Watch Movies
There is an excellent DVD series made especially for children called "Families of the World". In each DVD two families in a country are visited - one in the city and one in the country. The narration is done from the point of view of one of the children in the family, so children can easily relate to what they are watching.
You can also show children feature movies set in other countries. My young daughter and I watched Children of Heaven about a young boy and girl in Iran who have to share a pair of shoes - and it gave her an excellent insight into another culture.
4. Devise your own Geography Games
Draw a large world map on a piece of paper, stick it on a wall and play 'Pin the Plane on the Continent'. Or make up Geography Taboo, Geography Pictionary, Geography Jeopardy or Geography Charades. You can tailor-make your questions to fit the lesson you are teaching.
5. Communicate with children in other countries
Find pen pals and they can communicate by letter, email, Skype or even Facebook if they are older. Another option is to sign up for the Postcrossings program which organizes a postcard swap between people all over the world.
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