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In my co op geography class, I spend a few weeks on US Geography. I use a few periods to play board and card games that teach the states and capitals. I find playing games helps most kids absorb information far more effectively than trying to do it by rote learning.
A game that works well for the whole class to be involved at once:
This US Bingo has enough sheets for 36 students. Instead of just calling out names of states, the caller chooses from 3 sets of clues of varying difficulty. For example, you may call out “Albany is the capital of” and the students with New York on their cards put a counter on that square. Other clues contain landmarks, dates of admission and other state trivia.
As this game is based on luck as much as on knowledge, the smartest kids don’t always win. This gives the other kids a fighting chance!
I also have periods when I divide the class into groups of 4 and let them play board or card games. The following 3 games work well as a single game, last 30 minutes or less, and are easy to learn. All of them are lots of fun, but also require the students to concentrate on US geography as they play.
e USA is for 4 people. You have to plot a course across the US by foot, car or plane using exactly 10 cards. You start by each taking 10 cards and then each turn you take new cards and discard ones you don’t want in order to create a perfect journey (ie moving legally from one state to another).Kids are constantly looking at the map on the board to plot their course – which helps them learn the map without even realizing it!
Scrambled States of America game is based on the fun book and DVD by the same name. I play the DVD in class at the beginning of our studies of US Geography and the students all enjoy it despite the fact that its target audience is slightly younger kids. As one of them remarked: “It is so silly, it is funny”.
The board game is for 4 people and is very easy to learn. Players receive 5 State Cards which they must send home by matching them to criteria on the Scramble Cards.
Scrambled States Card Game is for up to 5 people. One person lays 15 cards in a circle with the draw pile in the middle. Then, a player throws the dice and reads the characteristic the dice shows. After that, other players have to match the card on the top of the pile with another card in play that has the same characteristics.
Quick reactions, as well as a knowledge of geography, are helpful here (ie, don’t try to play against your children if you don’t like losing!)
I used all these US geography games in a classroom setting, but of course, they would work just as well at home played during a family games night or as part of a homeschool lesson.
And for online US Geography fun, take a look at our web-based North America Unit Study.
Meryl van der Merwe
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