Geography is an important topic to cover with your students, but it can be difficult to make it enjoyable and not repetitive or boring. South America is a fascinating continent, and there are plenty of ways you can learn about the area in fun and interactive ways. That being said, enjoy our list of teaching resources on South America for homeschoolers!
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1. Families of the World
Families of the World is a DVD series that showcases, as the name suggests, different families from around the world and how they live their daily lives. It is a great way for your students to se everyday life in other countries. It can also provide a great prompt for a writing assignment. You can tell your child to pick a few aspects of their daily routine and write a paper comparing/contrasting their personal routine with the routine from another country. For South America, Families of the World has Brazil and Costa Rica. Of course, you can also check your local library for these DVDs.
2. Man vs Wild Season 2
In episodes 5 and 6 of this season, Bear Grylls visits the Amazon and Patagonia. These are two fascinating areas of South America. if you have adventurous, thrill-seeking kids, this could be a great choice to get them interested in geography. As a follow-up assignment, you could have your student write about which activities they would like to participate in or make a map of the places Bear travels in the episodes. (Side note: This season is free if you have Amazon Prime!)
3. Mapominoes
This fun and educational card game is like dominoes but with countries! This deck contains countries of North and South America. The goal of the game is to play a country card from your hand next to a previously played country card that shares a border with it. This game will help your children learn the locations of these countries on the map, and they get to engage in some friendly competition in the process 🙂
4. GeoPuzzles
Puzzles are a great tool for visual learners to process what they are learning about! This puzzle of Central and South America is a fun activity for all ages to practice their geography skills. You can challenge your student to put together the puzzle without looking at the reference image to really test how much they remember!
5. Lost on the Amazon (Choose Your Own Adventure)
Choose your own adventure books are an immersive way for your child to learn about various locations and periods in history. They also teach valuable critical thinking and cause-and-effect skills, and they motivate your child to read more! This choose your adventure book is set in the Amazon in South America. After reading the book, your could tell your child to try and research and design their own choose-your-own adventure game based in South America.
6. YouTube Vlog Series
While you might not think of YouTube as the first place to go for teaching resources, there are actually many great videos on there that you can use in your homeschool. Vlogs are video diaries that many creators do for their daily life, trips they go on, etc. There are many creators who make vlog series about traveling through South America. These videos will likely entertain your child, but they also give insights into traveling, the climate and physical geography of countries, activities, foods, language, and more. My favorite is this one from X Overlanders of their adventures overlanding across South America.
7. Unit Study
Here at FundaFunda, we offer an “Around South America in 30 Days” unit study. This unit study is fully online, self-paced, and contains interactive assignments for your student to complete. The course is aimed toward 4th-8th grade and discusses many aspects of South American geography. Even better, once you purchase the unit study, you will have lifetime access for your whole family!
We hope you enjoyed these teaching resources on South America for Homeschoolers! For more resources, check out this blog post on “Playing Your Way Around the U.S.A.” And, as always, if you have any more suggestions, please leave them in the comments below! Thanks for reading!
