How to host a geography fair

Hi! Future Ticia 2024 here and I’m updating How to Host a Geography Fair, and wow, there are a few things that were popular back when I first wrote this post, that aren’t a thing now, which date it. I’m gonna leave them in here as a bit of “internet history,” and then add in more that is a bit more in keeping with how I write my current geography lessons. All in all, it’s a good source for information if a bit outdated. I now return you to past Ticia 2014.

(I did add in affiliate links)

This month for Poppin’s Book Nook the theme is around the world.  I struggled a bit to think of a good idea because we’ve done a lot of geography posts, and used all of my favorite books, then we went to a geography fair, and I thought “SCORE!”

For those who are curious, my two favorites I’ve already done:

• How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World
• Me on the Map (this is a series of them)

Future Ticia 2024 says, current internet says that is not how you should open a post.

Advice to parents planning a geography fair

First, a word of advice to parents about the geography fair, do not make this into your project that your kids were somewhat involved in.  I saw a few displays and presentations that felt more like the parent’s work than the child’s.  You hurt your child’s education when you do this, and you enable them to think others will do their job.

Next, some general advice on setting up of the geography fair:

• Set a time limit, and use a loud buzzer for station rotation. I would suggest 5-10 minutes depending on how many countries are participating, but really I would lean more towards the 5 minute mark.
• Have requirements for everyone to do (see my suggestions below).
• Set a max budget so no one feels bad because one person could spend $100 and another could only spend $5.  Also this makes the presentations more uniform.
• Have a passport (see more information on that below).

1.  Pick a way to display the information for the geography fair.

The easiest way is to use a Trifold Presentation Board and put your information on that.    You can glue it down in many different ways to look good.  As a kid growing up we always used the Lauri Toys Alphabet Puzzle Boards, my Mom kept them and we’d use the puzzle as a stencil then color it in, much cheaper than buying stick on letters (not as pretty looking in many cases, but still good).

Alternate methods we saw (but weren’t able to get a picture of)

• multiple pieces of poster board hung on the walls
• many different props (from people visiting, or similar items they had)
• costumes

2.  Have a simple craft for everyone to do at the geography fair.

This geography fair required each country to have a small craft for the participants to do.  Most of the countries created a flag for their craft, but some had more unique ideas.  Look at local artwork, examples of dress, animals, or plants you might find.

We made fans, masks, Faberge eggs, a toy head-dress, wrote in Hebrew, and many many flags.  My kids loved all of the crafts they got to do, and I’ve seen them played with off and on all week long.

A few additional tips:

• pre-cut out the materials, there won’t be time to cut out things, so have everything pre-cut, so all the kids have to do is glue and color
• think in terms of high impact for low-effort and unique
  • the pointillism style from Australia (that is not what that art style is called, but I dont’ remember its name) is simple but was very distinct
  • flags are simple to put together and are each unique and fun
  • making flowers from a country is another high impact low-effort craft
• craft kits from Oriental Trading can be an inexpensive way to do this depending on how many kids will be at your fair.

3.  Have food to try from your country for the geography fair.

At each place we “visited” we got to try some local food.  Sometimes it was candy bought in the store, others it was cookies or bread, but it was always something easy to eat and relatively easy to make.  If you’re looking for ideas try checking out my Around the World in 12 Dishes series.  I’ve been going for 2 years and there are dozens of recipe ideas from full meals to quick snacks.

Future Ticia 2024 adds, all of my country studies have a recipe to go with them, and some have desserts which are easy to do for something like this. I don’t yet have all of the countries up, but here are the different continents so you can go check out what I have so far:

• United States (I very quickly figured out most recipes I found online weren’t specific to that state, but written by someone who lived in that state)
• Africa Unit
• North America
• South America
• Asia Unit
• Europe Unit
• Oceania Unit

You can also make it as simple as a specific topping a country is known for. The group doing Australia had someone from Australia and she made everyone try Vegemite and she thoroughly enjoyed seeing the faces of kids hating the taste of it.

4.  Have a short presentation for the geography fair.

(Since that’s not my child, nor the child of a good friend I’ve put her in a disguise)

At each stop in our world tour the kids in charge gave a short presentation to teach us about the country.  They told us about their language, culture, government, and whatever struck their fancy.  Each of these presentations was about 5 minutes long.

Here are some ideas to help you with presentations:

• How to write a research paper and present it (including a rubric for grading)
• Creating country reports

5.  Have a passport for the kids at the geography fair

At ours, they were a cute small book about the size of a real passport, and the kids put a sticker of each country into their passport, and any notes they took.  You could make them a little bigger, and this could be where they put their crafts, and maybe glue in extra information.  No matter what I think this is a great idea for all geography fairs to have.

And for those who are wondering what happened to Science Sunday yesterday, I got behind on…. well everything.  My lesson plans, sewing projects, blogging, and I had to let something go, and blogging was it.  So I didn’t write for yesterday.  Look for it next week as I spotlight all your cool posts for the month.

Originally this was part of a group project with a linkie for others to link up, but honestly most of those blogs are no longer public or online, so I’m just going to delete it all.