This is a follow-up to the Geography I lesson and is really the second half of AlexMokpo's Geography lesson.

Europe:

• Native Speaker introduces the concept of Europe and the sub-areas. 5 minutes.
• Native Speaker brainstorms as many countries as possible and categorizes them into the various sub-areas. 5 minutes.
• Students are split into groups and perform the Country Description activity using brainstormed countries. 15 minutes.
• Native Speaker presents the complete list of all countries for Students to memorize. 5 minutes.
• Students perform European worksheet. 10 minutes.
• Native Speaker goes over the European worksheet with students. 5 minutes.

Notes:

• Usually the boys succeed at Describe a County activity by listing off the various soccer teams that they know.
• The European worksheet worked better than expected; sometimes I even skipped the Country Description activity so that they could take up the European worksheet (or play the Map Game).
• Forcing the Students to go through 48 countries will takes a long time; splitting the countries into 6 groups give each group a manageable chunk.
• When taking up the Europe worksheet the 6 groups easily transforms into a game with 6 rounds:
  
  • As outlined in the lesson, you give each group a map and tell them to memorize it for five minutes.
  • You hand out the worksheet and take the map away despite their protests and give them ten minutes to fill in the map.
  • Around the five minute mark they’ll start to sputter so offer a hint by providing the list of countries for spelling purposes.
  • When they’re approaching the ninth or so minute I have volunteer from each group come up to my desk and pick up a small white board, a dry eraser and a marker.
  • Each questions takes the form of a country picture (Microsoft clip-art surprisingly covers all countries in Europe, except for Mpladonia) and the number on the worksheet.  A correct answer requires the group to properly spell the country on the white board and raise the white board above their head.
  • I present the beginning of each round with a list of countries.  If they’re smart they’ll feverishly copy this list down somewhere and have a valid stockpile of answers; just writing one country down and continually showing it for each question will result in at least one correct answer.

The study map and the map test both come from worldatlas.com. Everything else was taken from Microsoft Clipart.

More information about my lessons can be found here.

If your kids complain about the map activity being too difficult, just show 'em Lilly, the Geography Genius.

Wow, that's awesome.  I love how the kid starts to jump up and down the bed, then gets serious again and points at the map.

This is another installment of my Geography Series, Geography IV: Africa.  It's in a similar format as Geography II and Geography III but has been tweaked a bit more to handle Korean kids who don't really know anything about Africa.  Plus I wanted to make good on my threat. :)

Africa:

• Native Speaker introduces the concept of Africa and the subareas. 5 minutes.
• Native Speaker brainstorms as many countries as possible and categorizes them into the various subareas. 5 minutes.
• Students are divided into groups and perform African worksheet. 10 minutes.
• Native Speaker goes over the African worksheet with students. 25 minutes.

Notes:

• Predictably the kids knew nothing about Africa, except for the odd soccer enthusiast or kid who has seen The Mummy on OCN.
• This lesson, like the Geography II & III, can be taught in two routes.  The fist route involves the kids memorizing the study map and turning Africa worksheet into a multi round game.  The second glosses over the worksheet and goes into the Traveler IQ game.
• The boys seemed to enjoy the Traveler IQ more than the girls, but then the boys seemed to enjoy geography more that the girls.  And then it was about five to ten boys per class who wanted ‘one more time’ or who stayed after the bell to play Traveler IQ again.
• Forcing the Students to go through 54 countries will takes a long time; splitting the countries into 5 groups give each group a manageable chunk.
• When taking up the Africa worksheet the 5 groups easily transforms into a game with 5 rounds:
  
  • As outlined in the lesson, you give the each group a map and tell them to memorize it for five minutes.
  • You hand out the worksheet and take the map away despite their protests and give them ten minutes to fill in the map.
  • Around the five minute mark they'll start to sputter so offer a hint by providing the list of countries for spelling purposes.
  • When they're approaching the ninth or so minute I have volunteer from each group come up to my desk and pick up a small white board, a dry eraser and a marker.
  • Each questions takes the form of a country picture (again Microsoft clip-art covers most countries in Africa) and the number on the worksheet.  A correct answer requires the group to properly spell the country on the white board and raise the white board above their head.
  • I present the beginning of each round with a list of countries.  If they're smart they'll feverishly copy this list down somewhere and have a valid stockpile of answers; just writing one country down and continually showing it for each question will result in at least one correct answer.
• I was able to play the Traveler IQ game like a giant [noembed]Price is Right[/noembed] game because I have a access to a lab with an internet connected computer and a screen projector.
  
  • As outlined in the lesson you give the each group a study map but you also give them the worksheet at the same time.  I handed out both the study map and the worksheet face down to set up a race competition.
  • Give them X minutes to fill in the blanks or stop when one group has finished.
  • Remove the study maps and leave them with only their worksheets as reference material.
  • The Traveler IQ Game prompts the user with a place that the he or she has to find and click on a map.  The closest the user gets, the more points the user scores, and the further the user gets in the multi level game.
  • Each group elects a captain and that captain plays the game on the computer *without* the worksheet.
  • The rest of the group watches the captain's progress via the computer projector and helps the captain by yelling North, South, East, West to guide the captain to the correct location before the time runs out.  Though the kids usually forget this and slip into Korean directions.
  • Keep track of score and repeat until you have one group.  Then if you need more time you can break up the group into individual and compete for the smartest kid in the class.  At this point the students should have seen enough answers from previous rounds to make it through 3,4 or even 5 levels.
  • Since the captain on the computer has his back towards the projector screen, I usually stand beside the screen and circle the correct area with my hand to give the group a general direction of where the captain should place his flag.

The study map and the map test both come from worldatlas.com.

The Traveler IQ Game is found at TravelPod.

Everything else was found in Microsoft Clipart; the clip art style that I use is 1409 and it's large enough to cover most countries.  When it didn't I swapped to style 550.  And if you hate maps, you cold always swap them for flags.

More information about my lessons can be found here.

Thanks Alex, but since traveler IQ already has modes for the individual continents the game pretty much made the class for me.  I just made the powerpoint and filled out my template lesson plan.

But if anybody does actually use my lesson plans (and by use I mean hand it with my name crossed off and your name pencilled in) you should give it a read through before you do so.  There's a rumour that some schools will surprise you at the end of your contract and ask for your lesson plans.  We all know that every school is different and I suspect that these actually go unread at my school so I don't use the same level care as a real teacher.  Sometimes what I write comes across as harsh, mean spirited, or, given the right Korean translation, pure evil.  But if you've hung out with me in Mokpo you know that I'm not evil, I just find evil things funny.  So that humour sometimes leaks out when I'm just filling out a copy and paste word document that will spend the rest of it's life in a box. :)

here is a lesson i made based off the ideas posted here, and tailored for the level i teach. I can't remember at all where the "around the world in 30 min" power point came from, which i borrowed from, so apologies to the creator :S

Lesson covering General/Basic US Geography of the whole country.  Intended for 1st grade High school. 

Ppt, Handout and Game/Activity quiz included.
(read the handout with the ppt to make more sense of the presentation for teaching it)

The slides are great and the Blockbuster game is awesome!

Awesome job!

I'm even impressed that you put in the Great Passaic Falls (NJ), one of the highest waterfalls on the East Coast! 

Really useful plan, rejigged it a bit but the national geographic pics are great! Quiz really gets the students going.