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A Child’s Geography, Volume I, Explore His Earth, and Volume II, Explore the Holy Land

Publisher: Knowledge Quest Author: Ann Voskamp Review last updated: 2009

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Ann Voskamp has written the first two books in a series of geography texts for children in grades 1 through 6 (grammar stage). The influence of V.M. Hillyer, author of A Child's History of the World and A Child's Geography of the World, is evident. Like Hillyer, Voskamp writes with an engaging style, directly to the student:

"While I could see your home from the street, you can't see the home God made for us by standing back a little. The home god made for us is much bigger than just what you see outside your window, bigger than what is down your street, bigger even than what is across your country. The home God made for is STUPENDOUSLY HUGE!! So huge, we can't really see it all! That sounds strange, doesn't it?" (p. 10 Vol. 1).

You might have noticed the reference to God. In contrast to Hillyer's books, Voskamp's are thoroughly Christian in perspective. The Christian worldview shows up through the text material, the "Excursion" activities, and especially in the "Reaching Out to His World" activities.

Books are printed in full color on glossy paper, with photos, drawings, and other graphic elements contributing to a first class appearance. Each book includes a companion CD-ROM that has copywork passages and templates for students to use, tests, and other printable pages that vary by volume and will be described later.

The first book has 11 lessons, while the second has 16. Depending upon how you schedule lessons, the first book might take up to 22 weeks to complete, a bit less than a full school year. This is fine for a subject that is intended to be supplemental at these grade levels. The second book takes a bit more time and will likely take up most of one school year. Various scheduling options are described in the introduction to each book.

The first two books differ from each other enough that they need to be described separately.

Explore His Earth (Volume I) has a total of 243 pages--168 in the book, the rest on the CD. It is printed with a larger font than the second volume. The combination of the larger font and slightly fewer pages than the second volume results in significantly less lesson material (text) to be read with students. However, this volume has lots of "Too-Fun-to-Resist Excursions!"—two per lesson. These are mostly hands-on activities such as constructing a papier maché globe or conducting a relatively simple science experiment. These activities are especially good for children in the early to middle elementary grades who generally need more hands-on learning. Each lesson has a "Tell the folks at home all about it!" activity that is actually a narration. Prompting questions for the narrations are provided. In addition, for each lesson children create an oversize postcard using templates from the CD-ROM. Postcard creation serves as a "notebooking" activity. These are to be collected together with a single ring for review and reference.

One of the important reasons to study geography is to understand other people and their cultures from God's perspective and to develop a loving concern for them. To that end, Voskamp includes a "Reaching Out to His World" activity at the end of each lesson. It discusses a topic such as homelessness, how earthquakes affect people's live, and the activities of Mercy Ships, and then suggests prayer and/or actions in response. Additional resources such as books and videos are recommended under "For Further Exploration."

Copywork selections on the CD-ROM include excerpts from the text, definitions, biblical quotes, poetry, and occasional quotes from other sources. Copywork forms are provided in four different formats to suit younger and older students and to allow the option of adding a drawing. Maps on the CD-ROM include both labeled and unlabeled versions. In addition, there is a "Tectonic Plate Puzzle" plus a quiz for each chapter.

This first volume, Explore His Earth, really lays the foundation for later geography studies, covering topics like the globe, the atmosphere, continents, oceans, seasons, weather, climate, structure of the Earth, plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, latitude, and longitude.

Explore the Holy Land (Volume II), co-authored by Tonia Peckover, shifts into more content and adds significant cultural studies as students learn about Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. Study of each country is divided into two or three sections, so the material goes quite in-depth. Reading material even within each lesson is split into sections to keep it manageable. This volume uses "Field Notes" rather than "Tell the folks at home all about it!" for students to narrate what they have learned after each section of reading. Rather than postcards, students create a "Travel Log" with map work and notes from their studies. These should be collected into a notebook. A "Bringing it Home" section at the end of each lesson suggests resources for related art, music, and books, plus an occasional poem or recipe to try.

Culminating each group of lessons on a country is a "Go into all the world…" prayer for the people about whom the children have learned. You might have noticed that this volume lacks the "Excursions"—experiments and hands-on activities—of the first volume. While there are map work, narration, and drawing activities, as well as the occasional recipe to cook up, there's a definite shift toward a more "academic" approach.

This book has 192 pages plus another 87 on the CD-ROM. The CD has copywork, maps, and quizzes like those for Volume I. Instead of Postcard templates, it has Travel Log templates, again in four different versions. It also has the recipes that are in the book formatted in "recipe card" size for easy printing.

For both books, younger students will need parents to read the text to them and discuss new or unfamiliar vocabulary. This is not written on a third or fourth grade child's reading level. Older students might be able to read and complete some of their work independently, but narrations, activities, cooking, and experiments obviously require interaction with parents. These books should work best for a family that reads and works through the lessons together.

Both volumes are available as printed books with CD-ROM included, but they are also available from the publisher's website as downloadable ebooks at discounted prices.

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