How to Teach Children About Geography

Children's brains are constantly absorbing information. If you create an environment where geography is an active part of your child's life, you can significantly improve your child's ability to identify where different countries, states and cities are. You can ignite your child's interest in other cultures, too.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Buy a globe so that your child has a good perception of the layout of the continents. Use the globe to explain critical concepts like latitude, longitude, the equator and tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

2. Hang a map. You might choose one of the area in which you live and begin showing where you live in relation to other people or places that are important to your family.

3. Show them where their parent is when traveling. If your spouse is out of town, show the children on the globe or map where their parent is. This makes other places seem real to the children rather than a simple dot on a map. If your spouse can grab a souvenir or post card and bring it back home, it can cement even further the geography lesson.

4. Discuss where relatives live. Again, use the map or globe to find where relatives or good friends live. Geography can be so abstract to children that rooting the lesson in the reality of family and friends in far away locations can be very effective.

5. Research where their toys and clothes are made. Often children's toys and clothes are made in far off locations with exotic names. Take two or three toys with labels that identify where they were manufactured and use the map or globe to locate where those toys came from.