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Since we switched the young learners section of geography for Illuminations {affiliate link} that has been working very well, and then I hit the country studies.
They’ve got a well designed set of questions for a country study in Hands on Geography {affiliate link}, but it’s about 6 pages to print out for each country, and since I’d be doing that with 3 kids that’s a lot of paper. So I made a quick pseudo lapbook version for my kids to use and made it into an independent learning tool. If you’re only doing one country report or have fewer kids you REALLY should look at it, because it’s perfectly designed for 3rd grade country reports (seriously, I would have loved this when I was teaching 2nd grade with a tweak or two).
My goal for country reports:
My ultimate goal for my kids is for them to be independent learners who love learning. With the country studies I want them to take another step in that direction, I want them to be able to complete these reports their own.
Teaching how to do a country report (how to find information)
First we looked at the information they needed to get from their reading: language, continent, food, and more. Then I showed them how to underline the information they needed so it would be easier to find as they completed each part.
This was one of those skills that was a big help to me in college, if I could see the important things because it was underlined or highlighted, it made studying easier later.
Teaching how to do a country report (how to record information)
Did you ever have a high school teacher who made you take notes on note cards? I did, one of my teachers to help us understand how to create a report made us put each different fact on a different note card.
Lapbooking to me is a similar idea. You put each fact or information on a different (sometimes interactive) piece of paper. My kids enjoy the ones that have folds and flips to look at and will go back into our other pseudo lapbooks (they’re a combination of lapbook and notebook) and spend 15-20 minutes looking at them.
After some feedback from the kids I tweaked some parts. Originally I had created lots of fun looking shapes, but the kids didn’t like those as much, so I took them out and changed it to just ovals and rectangles.
So, far we’ve created one for North Korea for our Around the World in 12 Dishes (expect to see that soon), and one for United States (my trial run).
If you’d like a simple United States country report feel free to click on the picture to download it.
If you’d like to put together your own Country Report lapbook, then feel free to click on the picture up above.
I’ll be linking up to these parties as I remember:
All Things Beautiful Geography and History
Are you looking for more geography resources, then try The Ultimate Homeschool Geography Guide.
This is a great printable! I was attending a talk on Common Core standards yesterday, and, apparently, a great emphasis is placed on ability to use information in non-fiction texts, so I expect that even schools will be doing more lapbooking shortly.
They probably will. I have very mixed feelings on Common Core, it feels to me like another fad to pass through the education system. I actually moved away from the math we were using because I really don’t like the Common Core math (it incorporates some math fads from when I was teaching that I didn’t like then).
Very fun!! I love these and I think it would be fun to use them with our Little Passports stuff! Thanks for sharing them 🙂
Oh, they’d be great with Little Passports!
We just got our stuff for Japan yesterday. I am totally going to print out a page and work on it with Sammy!
I am not a big fan of lapbooks and neither are my kids, but this may be one of the few exceptions. The questions are perfect. Thank you for the writing about the underlining tip. We use highlighters instead, but we do basically the same thing.
I love your comparison of lapbooking to using notecards. Great post, and great printable!
Thanks for the printable lap book that can be used for any country. My daughter, first grade, has an interest in studying different countries. I think it will be perfect for her.
I’m glad to hear that.