Homeschool Open House - Our Geography Fair

At the last Homeschool Open House, (sponsored by Tammy of Lattes and Lollypops), I had hoped to be far enough long on our Geography Fair project to share with you. However, we were still in the research stage. This was the second year for our local homeschool group to have a Geography Fair. Last year, I was sick with mono and my mom took Joy to make her presentation and set up her exhibit. This year, all was well; I didn't have to miss out on all the fun and it was great!

Joy decided awhile back that she wanted to study the country of India. Last year, we read the book, A Little Princess (through our Sonlight curriculum), and part of it takes place in India. This book sparked the interest. And just a plug for this book, if you haven't read it to your children, it's a must-read. It is just a story that makes you want to do good, be good, and do what's right with a cheerful heart inspite of your circumstances.

But back to India, our first step was a stack of books on India. Joy and I took turns reading them aloud to each other and making notes as we went along. She decided on the parts of India she would like to present the most. With this gathered information, she and I put together an exhibit of India.

Back on our snow day (with big snowflakes falling outside our bay window), we made our salt dough map of India. This was lots of fun!



After shaping the country, Joy made the Himalaya mountains, and then painted the entire map. I made the little flags for her to put on the map. She marked the three major cities (one of them being the capital city of Delhi), Taj Mahal, and the Himalaya mountains with the little flags.



We both had lots of fun doing this and it was just a perfect afternoon for making it. (After there was enough snow on the ground, we were done with it and we went outside to play).

In addition to making the map, she made a lapbook of India. If you don't know what a lapbook is, let me explain a minute. It's a file folder folded together like a shutter.



Inside this folder are mini booklets folded in many ways, such as pop-outs, etc.., that have information accumulated from things studied about India. I found the templates for all of these on India from Homeschool Share. After cutting them out, Joy filled her booklets with all the information she learned. Then together, we worked on placing the booklets inside to fit.



We added an extra fold out sheet because she had so many little booklets.



Not only are lapbooks fun to make, they are great review tools. She can pull out her India lapbook at any time and review all the facts she accumulated about India.

Joy also did some additional research on Taj Mahal (one of the Seven Wonders of the World) , Gandhi (Political figure), Amy Carmichael (missionary to India), and Mother Teresa (Roman Catholic Nun). She made mini reports on each of these and placed all of these on her exhibit board along with photos of other interesting facts, including India's flag and Lotus Temple.



The Geography Fair was held on March 3rd. There were 12 families that participated in the fair. Others families that didn't do an exhibit, still came to enjoy and browse the fair. The idea was to set up an exhibit sharing all she had learned. She had 3-5 minutes for an oral presentation. She shared some little Indian wafer cookies with everyone that we purchased from an Indian store nearby.



After giving her oral presentation (decked out in her sari and sarong), she stamped everyone's passport with a stamp of Taj Mahal.





That was the way it worked. We moved around the gym letting each family share about their country with several of them dressed in traditional attire from the country they represented. The children ranged in ages from 4 to about 14. After they finished, they would stamp the passport of each child.



After all the presentations, were done, we walked around and browsed at each table more and the kids (and adults) sampled foods from around the world.

Here's one for my Canadian friends.....Joy's friend, Molly Grace, presented Canada. She was decked out as a Royal Mountie.



Friends from around the world....Indian girl meets Mountie....


We really had a great time! It was very educational! I can't wait until next year. Next year, our group is considering doing the United States only and every family will pick a state. I think this will be a nice change since we did countries last year. Joy presented South Korea last year and really enjoyed doing that one as the birth country of her brother!

Countries that were represented during this year's Geography Fair were: Serbia, Mexico, (Island of) Okinawa, India, Canada, Ancient Rome, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Ancient Persia, Ukraine, Italy and Japan. Here's a snapshot taken of the kids after the fair (there could have been some kids missing but we tried to rally them all together).



I hope you enjoyed your trip around the world today! Thanks for stopping by! Next Homeschool Open House, I plan to share some of the field trips we've taken recently.

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I finally had a chance to work on a few of Goodwill finds and give them a makeover. Stop by tomorrow to take a look and with a day or so, my mom's cupboard should be completed and I'll show you how it turned out!

Have a great Tuesday! :)