Purpose: To learn the meaning and spelling
of a list of common geographic terms
1. The use of multiple senses:
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Sound – The introduction provides time for the students to talk about the words and hear them being spoken.
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Sight – Activity 2 asks the students to illustrate the terms by drawing pictures to correspond with a story. The terms in Activity 1 are color-coded.
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Touch – Activity 1 uses the manipulation of cut-out letters, requiring the children to physically arrange the words to form the correct spelling.
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Understanding – Students analyze the information and relate it to previous knowledge in the introduction.
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Categorizing – Finding similarities and differences among the terms. Activity 1 categorizes the terms into bodies of water, raised land, and other land features.
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Imagery – In Activity 2, the students create an image with which to associate the term.
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Rhyme – The clues in Activity 1 and the story in Activity 2 is made to rhyme to be more memorable.
Introduction: Begin by talking about the
words on the attached list.
Go through the list and ask the students to define the terms in their
own words. Explain to them the meaning of rote memorization, which does not require
understanding. Tell them that for this lesson, we will use enhanced encoding instead, to store the information in our memory.
Make sure they can distinguish the differences between similar terms.
They should not just memorize a definition verbatim, but should be able to describe them in their own words,
and to compare and contrast them. Have
them try to think of at least one specific example for each. Explain to them that connecting new information
to what they already know makes it easier to remember the new information.
1.
Title: Geography Hunt
Materials:
For each student – “Geography Terms” chart
Letters to spell out each of the geography terms.
Clues in envelope for each team
Time: 30 mins.
Instructions: Divide the children into groups of 4. Give each child a “Geography Terms” chart for them to record their
answers. There should be various stations
set up around the room. Letters for
all terms describing bodies of water should be blue and set out at three of
the stations located near each other (letters for all terms at each station).
Letters for all terms describing land that is raised up higher than
the land around it should be brown and set out at three stations.
Letters for all terms describing low-laying (or non-specified) bodies
of land should be green and set up at three stations. You may use more stations.
During the activity, students are to rotate the tasks of reader and letter
arranger within each group. Set up
ahead of time the order to distribute the tasks throughout the activity. Give the first reader the packet of clues.
Start each group with a different clue, and have them go in order from
there, coming back to #1 once they have finished #15. The reader will read
the clue to the rest of the group, and they are to come up with the
answer. Once they have the answer,
they are to go to one of the appropriate stations.
There can not be more than one group at a station at a time.
At the station, the letter arranger is to find and arrange the letters
to form the answer to that clue. Once
the students have done this, they are to check with the teacher that their
answer is right. If it is, each member
of the group is to write down the term on the chart and write a definition
in their own words. After they have
all done this, they each much have the teacher initial that row on their paper. Then they may proceed to the next clue. The reader hands the stack of clues to the
next reader. The team to complete
the activity first wins.
Materials:
2-3 copies of the “Geography Story”
Coloring Utensils for each student
hole-punch
yarn or string
Time: 30-45 min.
Instructions: Read the story included
in the packet aloud once to the class. Then,
pass out different pages of the story to the students. Each student is supposed to illustrate the
page of the story they are given. They
should include a picture of the geography term(s) mentioned on their page. The class as a whole will make 2-3 copies of
the story. You may divide the story
into a different number of sections to correspond with the number of your
students. When they are done with
their pictures, arrange them into groups so that each group has a complete
story. Have them take turns, in the correct order
by page number, reading their page and showing their picture. Then, help them bind their story using the
hole-punch and string.
Explain the terms rhyme and imagery to the students and their importance to memorization. Ask them to think of why these tricks might
improve memory. Can they think of
other examples in which they had an easier time remembering something because
they used one of these two methods?
