Expedition Earth for Co-ops: Organization

Erica from Confessions of a Homeschooler has developed a wonderful geography curriculum called Expedition Earth . Though it is geared for home-use, I've been using it with our local co-op group for K-5th grade (our older kids are doing middle school science at this time). I thought I'd share how we've modified some of the curriculum to use in a small/large group setting.

Materials:

Expedition Earth Curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler
Expedition Earth Animals free download (posters for each country)
Continent Hop free download
Oceans of the World free download
3-prong file folders for each child
crayons
pencils
glue sticks

Optional but helpful:
large world map shower curtain
inflatable globe
travel bag or suitcase

Countries to be Studied:

Our co-op has scheduled 16 teaching weeks for the year and then an end of the year celebration. This is our curriculum plan:

2 weeks intro. to maps and geography (what's a map? how to read a map, latitude/longitude etc.)
2 weeks on each continent (2 countries from each continent except for the Poles, which is 1 week)
1 week of review/doing crafts for party
End of the year geography party

The countries we are studying this year are:

China
Japan
Netherlands
Germany
Canada
Mexico
Argentina
Brazil
Morocco
Egypt
Australia
New Zealand
The Poles

Organization:



I have file folders for each country that we are going to study. Within each file folder there are 3 folders for the country we are studying:

Large Group Artifacts: photos, postcards, currency, travel brochures, animal posters and any other flat artifacts are filed here.
Younger Geography: simple country worksheet and flag printable, passport stickers.
Older Geography: country fact sheet, map sheet, and prayer cards.

I went ahead and printed out all the fact sheets/map sheets, passport flags, animal posters etc. for each country that we will be studying and filed them for the year. I also scrounged up some helpful resources such as map placemats, world puzzles, resource books, Atlases etc. and placed them in the container. We store all the Expedition Earth folders for each child plus crayons, glue sticks, and pencils in one large Rubbermaid bin. This makes it extremely easy for the teachers to be able to grab and go teach for that day.

Tomorrow's Post: Expedition Earth for Co-ops: Implementation

Related Posts:
Expedition Earth Review