GAPS

I'll tell you a little known fact about myself.

I really enjoy geography.

I didn’t enjoy it or even pass it in middle school but as an adult I think it is fun and I wish I knew more. I hope my kids will know where Wisconsin is, even enjoy knowing where Indonesia is located and what is near Chile.

Having a knowledge of geography is helpful when listening to the news, knowing where the news is happening and how news effects that place’s neighbors and their place in the world.

Back when the Olympics started a blog I read talked about their geography lessons and how they work it into their learning. The author mentioned her boys finding the countries on their maps while they were being read off during the opening ceremonies. Wouldn’t that be fun! At the end of her blog post she mentioned other opportunities for geography fun.

The Great American Postcard Swap was one of those opportunities. I followed the links, sent the emails and joined up in a group of families from all over the United States sending each other postcards. Each week or so a different family sends a postcard from their state to the families in the other 49 states. At the end of 50 or so weeks, the theory is, that each family will have a postcard from each state!

Getting the postcards is so much fun. Some of them are just signed, “Hello from __”. And some of them have a label of fun facts about that state. All of them have been great postcards showing a beautiful part of that state (peaches from Georgia, pelicans from Florida, the beach in Hawaii).

To have a place for all our postcards and to show how each state “fits” in the country I got a US map to hang on the wall. When a postcards come in the mail (it is always fun) I hang it on the map and run a string of yarn from the postcard to the actual state on the map. The next step is to get some black-line maps printed up so each of the kids can color and identify where the states are themselves. #1 and I have a goal to be able to fill in a black-line map of the US this summer. We get a girls date when we’re able to do it.

Just a little geography fun!