This YouTube playlist is a lifesaver if you have middle or high school kids studying world geography.
I love the minimalist approach (aka, no expensive online or full-curriculum option) and our goal is to raise independent learners. By the time my kids are in middle and high school, the majority of their daily work is on them. For sure, I am here to tutor, coach, and keep on track. But I am not going to do all the work – they are!
So, if this approach sounds good to you, here is how it’s looked in our house.
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Elementary & Middle School:
We worked through the Mystery of History books, from Creation to Modern Times, one book per year. Then, when we finish, we start again at the beginning, and I usually have another child in the rotation by that 4-year cycle mark. However, after going through the MOH books for at least 2 cycles now, we switched it up and went more minimalist this year for my two middle schoolers and one fourth grader.
High School:
My oldest is in ninth grade this year, so he spun off our normal history routine into his own scope and sequence for high school.
Typical high school social studies credits look like this: World Geography, World History, American History, Government & Economics.
(Disclaimer: You need to check with your state for high school credits & graduation requirements.)
So for ninth grade social studies, I bought a used copy of Bob Jones University Press’ Cultural Geography. I also bought the test packet. However, you could use any core geography resource as your “spine.”
How it looks daily:
My son is reading a section each day and outlining the text. Reading text, learning how to create multi-level outlines, then being able to study from those outlines is a skill that we need to teach our kids. After he takes a test, he looks back in his notes to check his wrong answers. If that information wasn’t in his notes, then we look back in the text together and he is able to see what good notetaking looks like.
Geography shouldn’t be all about a dry textbook. Ideally, we would all travel the world and experience it first hand! My oldest son is lucky in that he traveled with my husband on our final adoption trip to Ethiopia and got to experience that culture firsthand.
Since it’s not always possible to travel, having great videos on hand is a must!
I went searching for a great video playlist for world geography studies and couldn’t find what I needed. So I created an extensive (although not exhaustive) list of great video for every region of the world explaining the geography, the political situations, the history, and the culture of the place.
It is based on the BJUP Cultural Geography table of contents, but it will still be useful for you no matter what curriculum you are using. You just need some type of spine for your studies – an Atlas, a pile of library books, a geography text. Most of it is on the middle school to high school level, as some videos discuss geopolitical issues and current events. I have done my best to screen the videos to make sure they are appropriate for kids, but parents, please check out the videos with your kids to make sure they meet your family standards.
So, if you’d like to download my Ultimate YouTube Playlist for World Geography, then grab it below (or it’s in the members-only resource library!)
You can save it to your computer, then your student can open the document and click the appropriate video links for each chapter’s study.
If you want to extend the learning past the textbook and videos, you can have them write short papers describing the interplay between geography, economics, culture, movement, politics, and history.
I have a Playlist for High School Physical Science as well!
Check out my other resources on my Homeschool Social Studies Pinterest board!
