Let's Go Geography {a Homeschool Review Crew review}

Geography is one area where I feel like I’ve missed the boat and not done nearly enough. At least with my younger two. The older ones spent a year studying various countries, and they spent a year studying each state in the US. But really, Richard and Trina have not done much.

So when Let’s Go Geography came along, I thought I could utilize this as a low-key, fun homeschool geography curriculum, even though both kids are well beyond the intended K-4th grade age range. Trina is in 6th grade, and Richard is in 8th.


So far, this has been fabulous. We don’t do all of the activities, but we are taking a country each week and focusing on it. Actually, the first two weeks were spent on regions of the United States. Specifically, we studied the northeast US and Hawaii.

This program is year 1 of a planned 3 year curriculum, so each year has you learning about two US regions, and a bit more than two dozen countries from around the world. Each year, you cover a few countries in North America, a couple in South America, a few in Europe, a couple in Africa, a few in Asia and either Australia, New Zealand or Antarctica.

Over the course of three years, you will have covered a pretty good chunk of the world map, especially if you go by area. On each continent you are covering the largest countries, many of the middle-sized ones, and a few small ones too.

In addition to the US regions, we have studied Canada, Haiti and Nicaragua. I had hoped to get further, but Connor was home for a week before college starts, and Dad took a week off work. You know, life happened.

Completed map of Canada

The program consists of pdf files that include printable pages and clickable links. Each week, you learn some basic statistics and do some map work. You learn about (and color) the flag. You listen to some music, usually the national anthem. You have links to some great educational videos online, plus some text that helps you understand more about the geography and culture of that country.  Some great photos to help you remember some of the things you learned. There is a craft activity, a coloring page, and a notebooking page. 

That's a lot of information, and you can definitely pick and choose what appeals to you the most!

A screenshot of one of the Nicaragua videos!

Books about Haiti from the library

They also recommend checking your library for non-fiction books about the country. In addition to that, we’ve been grabbing videos and some fiction books as well.


We’ve also been scouting out recipes from the country, as food makes everything more fun. Especially dessert. And when we find out what the language is in that country, we go learn a few basic words. When a language duplicates, we’ll expand on what we have studied. The first time we encounter a language, we learn to say hello, goodbye, yes, no, please, thank you, and “Do you speak English?” The second time, we expand on that.

One thing I really love is that she has often taken a craft idea from online and adapted it to make it more applicable to K-4th grades. We’ve tended to go check out the original (the link is provided) and to work with that.

We haven’t been doing the coloring pages, but otherwise we really are doing most of the work provided.

A worksheet from one of the review weeks

Once you finish a couple of continents, there are review weeks.  I didn't expect much, but these review weeks are really great.  Of course, you have maps, flags, and activities to actually review all of the countries you covered for those continents.  You also cover some information about the continents as a whole. 

In addition, though, the review weeks are where you are introduced to things like latitude and longitude, hemispheres, etc.  I love that the geography terminology is formally introduced in these weeks.



My bottom line on Let's Go Geography?

This is a great program that doesn't suck up a whole lot of time, but does give your child a basic overview of around eighty countries over three years.  You can expand on it, as we have, to include things that are interesting or important to you.  Trina is working on her World Heritage badge for AHG, so that is why we added food, actual language study, and stories. 


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