Hello Omschool friends! Teacher Omi (grama) here with free printable geography games, crafts and lesson plans. In the US, geography has been absorbed into broader social studies lesson plans. Many older people who were drilled in geography and history fault modern educators for not continuing this. How many times did I hear my grandparents complain that us kid knew so little about US history and geography, let alone world history and geography. And they were right and wrong. Social studies broadens the study to include world cultures, civics, government and other related topics. We learned to connect events in time and place, instead of just memorizing dates and battles. We learned about people of the world not just where places were.
But critics are correct to an extent too--when subject scope is widened some specific content falls through the cracks. And a thorough understanding of world geography is content that should not. So here are easy, hands-on geography lessons to teach not only where in the world but how the world is made up. These activities to show how people of the world adapted to regions of the world and how cultures differ by climate, landforms, water sources, biomes and animal habitats they inhabit.
Make hands-on landforms and topography maps for social studies. Begin by mixing up a large batch of play dough. Make the play dough in class and use it for interactive math measuring lesson plans. Here's an easy play dough recipe. This recipe will make enough for one student. Multiply ratios to make enough play dough for your class size
1 cup hot water
1 cup white flour
1/4 cup salt
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
teaspoons alum or cream of tartar
food coloring
Mix ingredients with fork till play dough cools enough that it can be worked by hand. Measuring and mixing play dough in class gives students practice in ratios, fractions and measurement. When mixed, separate play dough into balls. Color one ball blue (or green) for water. Leave one ball plain white color for land. Give each student a paper plate, a plastic knife and two zippered bags to separate play dough colors. Students will use these in hands-on geography lessons.
Introduce geographical terms and definitions for landforms. Demonstrate shapes of landforms using play dough and then by drawing landforms on the overhead projector. Use black pen for land and blue for water. Students will use their blue and white clay to create landforms based on drawings from the board or overhead projector.
Landforms scavenger hunt. List different landform, types of bodies of water and geographical features. Students should locate examples of landforms on topography maps or globes with 3D terrain landforms. Here are free printable landforms coloring pages and worksheets for geography lessons. Mr. Nussbaum has free printable geography maps, landforms coloring pages and more. Edupics has free printable outline maps to color and label.
Geography landform terms, definitions and examples for topography lessons.
Water formations:
strait: narrow strip of water, separating two large land masses and connecting two larger bodies of water, inverse of an isthmus (Straits of Mackinac, Straits of Magellan, Bosporus)
gulf: large inlet of ocean near a land mass (Gulf of Mexico)
bay: smaller inlet of coastal ocean near a land mass that connects to another body of water(Kotor, Fundy, Maya, San Francisco, Botany)
fjord: narrow, deep glacial valley flooded by ocean
bight: broad open slightly recessed curvature of coastline that creates a bay
sound: ocean inlet near a coast deeper than bight and wider than fjord. (Puget Sound)
lagoon: (Laguna) shallow pond cut off by reef or sand bank, that surrounds an island, such as the Venetian Lagoon or is coastal.
lake: body of water larger than a pond, but generally smaller than an ocean. Largest ones by square mile are Caspian Sea, Superior, Victoria, Huron and Michigan. Deepest are Lake Baikal, Tanganyika, Caspian, Viedma, Vostok) Some are also called seas.
ocean: largest named bodies in the world (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic)
river: narrow strip of water flowing in one direction from a higher elevation to a lower elevation (Nile, Amazon, Mississippi)
waterfall: created a river flows over a cliff
tributary: branch of a river
delta: area at the mouth of a river where the river fans out in muddy marsh, silt or tributaries to meet a larger body of water (Mississippi Delta)
river basin: area along river that is drained by the river.
bayou: slow-moving marshy inlet, arm or outlet of river or lake.
swamp: forested wetland
marsh: like a swamp with grass being primary vegetation
mire or bog (peat moss wetland)
Land formations
peninsula: piece of land that juts out into a body of water (state of Florida, Indochinese, Arabian, Iberian in Spain, Crimean, Scandinavian peninsulas)
island: small land mass in a body of water
key: island in a chain (Key Largo)
chain of islands (state of Hawaii)
atoll: a circle of islands (Bikini Atoll)
archipelago: a collection of islands in no formation. It resembles a puzzle broken into pieces because that's pretty much what it was. The Greek islands for example came from the solid land mass of Aegeis. (Greece, including the Cyclades, Dodecanese, Ionian, Saronic, Sporades, and North Aegean island clusters).
isthmus: narrow strip of land separating two large bodies of water and connecting two larger land masses, often bisected by man-made canal (Isthmus of Panama, Panama Canal)
mountain: area of increased elevation rising to a peak
cliff: the edge of a piece of land that cuts away to land of lower elevation
dune: sandy beach that rises to an elevation along a lake
bluff: a rounded area of land overlooking a lower elevation
hill: an area of elevation smaller than a mountain with rounded top
mesa: steep narrow elevation, similar to a hill or mountain with a flat top
butte: an isolated rocky hill with steep, vertical sides and a flattish surface (Monument Valley, Death Valley, Grand Canyon)
plateau: wide, high area of elevation with flat top
canyon: narrow corridor or pass between rocky elevations
gorge: similar to a canyon with a river bed at the bottom (Snake River Canyon)
I've not included geographical surface types, or biomes, like tundra or savannah. These are biological plant and animal communities that develop in response to environment and climate which is created by water and land formations. That's subject matter for another lesson plan and Omi's tired! 😁
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