Attack of the Blob!

Jump right into geography with one of my favorite exercises: the blob map.

This lesson is adapted from the geography section of the book The Core by Leigh Bortins --a great read. 

Geography is truly the easiest subject to teach classically, yet it is one of the most neglected of all the subjects in every methodology of education. All you really need is a map, drawing utensil, and paper. You can replicate a map with your finger and dirt if you needed to! Sounds like the crucial part of an exciting adventure story, huh?

Hopefully, this will inspire you to add the <10min exercise that is geography to your school day at home and you will be SO amazed at how well your student will be able to replicate a simple world map in just a few weeks!

Blob map:
1. Fold a piece of paper in half, hot dog style [landscape!].

2. Unfold and draw a line on the crease you just made. Label your equator.

3. This step can be done in one of two ways:
a) use a student atlas or atlas that has a picture of the world with the Great Circles labeled. Match your equator with the equator in the picture, then draw the Tropics and the Arctics.

b) (our choice most of the time at home) This works best with manila paper, but we've managed to use the year's supply up already and must use 8.5x11. First, fold the bottom edge of the paper up the distance from the tip of your finger to the first palm-side knuckle crease.

Keeping that edge folded, bring that fold up to the equator.

When you unfold it, you should have two creases that are roughly proportional to the actual lines the tropics and arctics make [the tropic line are closer to the equator and the arctics are closer to the edge of the paper]. Draw in the circles and label them. From north to south, Arctic Circle, Tropic of Cancer, Equator, Tropic of Capricorn, Antarctic Circle.

4. Using the Great Circles as a drawing reference and your world map, draw blobs to represent the continents. Encourage your child to make the blobs more closely resemble the actual continent each time they draw the map.

Here's my atlas boy blob-mapping away...

And my dear oldest knight who rushed through it but still gets the point across...

Blob maps can be used in conjunction with actual tracing--trace the continents first, then make rough ovals/blobs around them, or reverse it and draw your blobs, then trace directly onto your blobs and see how close you are.

Geography is the subject that most utilizes the basic drawing shapes used in our first quarter drawing lessons.  It is very gratifying to our students to watch their curved lines, angled lines, dots, straight lines, and circles slowly changing over the weeks into recognizable countries!

"Did you ever go to ---  I think it was called Norway?"
"No. No, I didn't."
"Pity. That was one of mine. Won an award, you know. Lovely crinkly edges."