World Geography Board

For those of you who are familiar with this blog-I am sure you remember the posts about the States Geo Board (pictured on the left).  If you are new, you can catch up on those posts here. Anyway, we completed the states and now I want to focus on a general study of the world continents/countries.  So I had to revamp the board to update it and this is what I came up with.  Most of the right side and left stayed the same, say for some title changes, but the middle took on some new sections.  I have not completed it as of yet, because I still need to make or order a few pieces to go along with it. This will  give you a general idea.

FYI: It is easy to create most of the titles/maps/etc. using your MS Word program to type out what titles you want, then you can use clip art (lots of good ones, including the ones I used to make the continent squares (down by the Flags of the World label). I also have some of the pages available to download, just look thru the previous posts. I will try to get the one with the little continents up soon, but until then you can use your MS Word-they should be there.

World Geography Board

almost complete

As for the compass pieces, well I purchased a year or two ago from a local Dollar Tree store.  I dunno if those are still available, so just keep your eyes open when you cruise thru the store at varying times. Obviously, you can use anything-little sticky notes, another type of bulletin board cutout, etc.-just remember to laminate them so you can use them over and over again! Usually, I will go thru all the stuff in the teacher section at the store, and if one or more of those little bulletin board packages are screaming to me "YOU could use me, I know you can!" then I get it.  I just didn't know what I wanted to do with those things when I bought it.  I tossed it into my "someday" box where they sat until recently when I had an "OH YEAH!" moment and had to dig them out.

This side has minor changes-added the white/blue strip with the compass so we can velcro on the current continent we are studying. Those are stored in the first white pouch above.  The Oceans one has the same squares I noted in other posts, I just need to find my laminated page to put in the holder below.  I want to have the boy review those too (might as well-esp. since the continents and oceans are almost always studied together). Oh, and I found a wee little magnet strip from some other craft thing-so I put it on the bigger maps holder (it had a sticky back) to hold the markers that have a magnet on them.  It is not super strong so the markers fall if it is bumped..but it looks cute :). I will find a stronger one soon and replace it when I can.  I don't have the maps with the long. and lat. noted on them-so that is on my 'to buy' list [hence the reason the pocket is empty].

No change to the right side. In fact-he'll finally have more reasons to use these since we're focusing on longitude and latitude this year.  He can reference those first, then have a general idea of where in the world he has to focus to find those coordinates that [will be] noted on the back of the compasses (which are being stored in an up-cycled holder that was the states flag stickers packaging we used last year for the states study).

The middle section got the most revamping.  I added the new Map Quest area and the holder for the compasses, along with the new strip of white to have the Flags of the World velcro'd to it.  The little white card to the left of it is of the current continent we are studying.  We'll simply switch that out as we progress thru the study.  Of course, have to have a puzzle and this one is a doozy! It is double sided, so the person building it has to figure which side is needed first-ah, love to aggravate the kiddos here with a puzzle like this! LOL  I may also get a flags of the world puzzle too-just depends on our budget this year.

Here is a closer look at the sections with descriptions on it for you.  Enjoy!