5 Activities that Make Geography Fun

Geography lessons let your students travel the world without ever having to leave the classroom. They learn how to read and create maps, identify different landforms and bodies of water, and understand the relationships between cities, states, countries, and continents. When you think about it... that's a lot of really content-heavy stuff.

You can take those vast geography skills and create fun and engaging lessons that help your students gain a global perspective and understand the world around them. I have 5 geography activities you can include in your unit. Because we all have a variety of needs, a couple are no prep and a couple require more in-depth planning and preparation.

Regardless of your lesson-prepping style, you want access to high-quality resources you can find in a snap. And not just for your geography activities, but everything else you are teaching during the year. Education to the Core Premium provides just that. 15,000+ primary teacher resources available to you with the click of a button.

1. Identifying ME in the World

This is a geography activity that we all do in some way or another during our map skills lessons. It is important for our students to realize how truly large the world is around them. Me in the World starts with each student as they slowly add their home, city, state, country, continent, and ending with Earth. I create a flip book as my activity, but I have also seen it done with circles growing in size.

2. Geography Escape Room

I have to admit that I am obsessed with escape rooms. So, why not use map skills and information on the continents and oceans to create the mother of all geography activities?

Your students will follow along with a set of pirates as they answer questions to advance on a treasure map. Identify parts of maps and globes, continents, oceans, landforms, and bodies of water. Will they be able to unlock the map and find the treasure?

3. Flat Stanley Project

One of my favorite geography activities has to be our Flat Stanley project. About a week or two prior to beginning our geography unit, I start reading aloud the first Flat Stanley book to my class. When finished, we put a map on the wall in preparation for our flat travels. We document where our "flats" visit during the unit.

This project will require family participation, so we have included a letter home to outline how it all works. The neat thing is that you get to include your extended family and friends in a school activity for your child.

4. Print and Go Geography Activities

I have many teacher friends who don't really have time to teach full blown social studies lessons. But they are still responsible for those standards, so print and go geography activities for the win!

Watch a quick YouTube video and practice skills discussed with a no-prep printable. Your students can work on reading and creating maps or identifying landforms and bodies of water through a variety of activities. And the best part is that you are still teaching social studies without spending hours on lesson planning and prep.

5. Anchor Charts for Geography

If you like the low prep that worksheets bring, but want to teach a bit instead of watching videos, anchor charts can do just that. Use our anchor chart vocabulary set to put together interactive lessons for your students.

I strongly recommend involving your students in the creation of your anchor charts. Pass pieces out and let them help put together the charts, or ask for their ideas when adding the content.

Anchor charts are a great reference tool for both you and your students throughout the unit. They can use them when working on independent work, and you have something to review with and warm-up each of your lessons.

Geography activities and geography worksheets help our students learn about the world they live in and how to navigate through it. Now I know what you are thinking... with map apps and GPS, who needs these skills? But when you are out in the wilderness hiking and don't have service, they come in pretty handy. ?

I hope that you find these 5 simple activities easy to add to your current unit on geography. Or maybe you use them to create your unit from scratch. Either way, grab them from ETTC Premium and save yourself time and money while planning and prepping.

Written by: Janessa Fletcher

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