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4 Hacks for Learning Geography Through Play

Learning geography through play is one way to inspire curiosity and help your kids not only learn this vital subject but also enjoy it and remember the things they are learning.

While many of us homeschooling parents like to dot our “i’s” and cross our “t’s”, it seems like our children want education to be fun. What’s up with that?

In all honesty, it’s hard to make learning fun, but it’s important because having an interest in a subject is what will spark their curiosity and inspire them to learn more!

learning geography through play

Geography is a subject you can explore with a variety of hands-on activities. Think salt dough maps and hand stitching the continents, or playing games such as geography bingo, pin-it maps, and a variety of puzzles.

Hacks for learning geography through play

Play a game such as the Scavenger Hunt Game.

This is a game you can tweak and rework to fit your homeschool, but here’s one way to play it:

You will need a large map and a list of things to find.

Giant Wall Map

You’ll want both a world map and a United States map for learning geography of both the U.S. and the world at large. Using a Scavenger Hunt Game like this one, one person serves as the “Caller,” and he or she reads off a location, landmark, shape, size, or animal (you get the idea) from the list.

The rest of the players have to find the best place for this object or location on the large map and point to it. The first person to find it gets a point. Depending on the number of players or the time you have, you can play a few short rounds to give more of your kids a chance to win.

Apps help make learning geography fun.

If you have access to a tablet or pretty much any smartphone, there are two fun apps to help with learning the states as well as the countries.

Stack the States and Countries
  • Stack the States – This app helps with learning geography concepts including state capitals, shapes, geographic locations, flags, and more. Your kids can touch, move, and drop the animated states anywhere on the screen. They will be able to build a stack of states that reaches the checkered line to win each level and then earn a state for every successfully completed level. All of their states appear on their personalized map of the United States. The goal is to collect all 50 states and unlock bonus games.
  • Stack the Countries – As your child learns about country capitals, landmarks, geographic locations, and more, they can move and drop the animated countries anywhere on the screen. As with Stack the States, they work on building a stack of countries in order to move through the levels. A nice thing about this game is that you can choose to focus on one specific continent or play the whole world, depending on what your homeschool class is covering in geography at any given time. Stack the Countries provides 193 country flash cards and colorful interactive maps of the continents as a fun way of learning geography.

Get crafty while learning geography through play!

For the artsy/crafty students in your house, try having them Create Their Own Atlases.

IMG_1974

Using blackline printables of the country, continent, or state, give your student an atlas and have him color and label away!

Do a Homeschool Geography Unit Study Together

There are plenty of online resources you can find in order to create a unit study for learning geography. Try this 7 Continents Mini Unit Study and Printable!

Or if you’re looking for an actual homeschool curriculum for learning geography, check out our Geography Curriculum Homeschool List.

Here are more ways to Make Learning Geography Fun for Kids.

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Featured Image Photo by Anthony Beck

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