Expedition Earth in a Co Op Class

COAH Curriculum
1

I have used Expedition Earth in a 1-3 grade co op class. It was a really great class, the kids loved it.

The class was 55 minutes once a week so I had to just pick a few things to cover for each country. (I did one country per week).

This is what a typical class looked like:

  1. As the children came in they colored in their flag page (I had a sample on the table so they knew which colors went where)
  2. As a class we located the country on a big world map.
  3. We learned how to say hello and thank you in that countries language.
  4. I had them glue on the information to the country info page. (Where they write in the capital, language, religion etc.).
    I typed up papers for them to just glue into that box because I realized that it took up way to much time for them to write in all that info during class.
  5. Read country info from Trip Around the World or Another Trip Around the World books.
  6. Read the page for that country from Children Just Like Me
  7. Read Fun Facts Page
    *For #5,6 & 7 I wouldn’t read every thing on every page because there wasn’t enough time. I would just read what I thought was important or interesting. (My kids loved the fun facts that were unusual).
  8. Show pictures of the country from library books and point out a few landmarks
  9. Introduce animals for that country and add them to their correct chart
  10. Have students color in then add the flag to their passport and write the date.
  11. Students complete the country lap book tab
  12. Assign homework- usually a page from the Trip Around the World or Another Trip Around the World Book
    **For the countries that did not have pages in The Trip Around the World books I would just find something else off the internet for an activity or craft

At the end of the year, every child took home a binder filled with all the papers they did for each country along with their countries lap book.

It really was a great class. I highly recommend using this curriculum for a geography co op class.

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Thanks so much for typing all this up @kathleennj! We are planning to use EE this coming year so I love stealing everyone else’s ideas! Did you use the Geography Songs CD? Was there a particular reason that you did or didn’t?

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@dragonflyer I only used the geography songs at home with my son. He loved them.

I did not use them in the co op class because there was not an outlet in my room to plug in a CD player.

I do remember another geography class that I subbed in a few years ago. There was no set curriculum but they were studying the countries around the world. They used the geography songs CD and the kids said that was their favorite part of the class. I think that it would work nicely in a co op setting.

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