WORLD GEOGRAPHY; Middle/Junior High School
Feedback from families and educators tell us Social Studies moves up the ranks as one of the favorite courses! The  set of two beautiful full color worktexts are comprehensive and present world affairs realistically. A wealth of support materials accompany these full color worktexts!

This World Geography is offered as our standard 7th grade social studies course. Curriculum Services provides an array of enrichment and teacher's support materials, all of which were created for you by Curriculum Services to save you valuable work and time.

Included below are:
  1) an overview
  2) Social Studies Courses by Grade
  3) Criteria for Selecting Curriculum 
  4) World Geography Course Materials Listed 
  5) sample pages from the worktexts
  6) sample pages from the support materials

OVERVIEW
Words cannot do justice in comparing this middle/junior high school World Geography course to any other! Rather than provide a text and answer key our program is enriched and carefully balanced. The latest full color worktexts serve as the core of the program. These are accompanied by enrichment worksheets; test book; a special maps binder (see below); ledger size (11" x 17") bulletin board schedules, one for course materials and new to the course is a schedule for vocabulary study; and teacher's manual. Curriculum Services designed teacher's manual for the parent educator or tutor to provide just the kind of help you need.
     After carefully reviewing other World Geography courses we found a great deal of extremes. One extreme concerns points of view. Publishers like to use their texts as a forum to expound the way they want others to view the world. We see this in some non secular texts*. Another extreme concerns the sheer volume of work offered. Most course materials used in the classroom cannot be used the way they were designed because there is far too much material to cover in a 36 week school year. The way many educators handle the problem is to skip much of the text. Feedback from parents, students, teachers, and school administrators suggest that on the average only 1/5 to 1/2 of the average textbook gets covered. This creates gaps and many believe that gaps are the number one cause of student underachievement. Gaps in World Geography means that parts of our world would be not studied. One has to wonder how a teacher chooses what parts of our world to skip or what parts are not relevant.  
     Another recourse when too much material is provided is to "cram". Cramming is not a very practical solution because of the lack of retention as students will often remember long enough to pass the test. There is no simple solution for well meaning teachers who have no recourse but to use what the school board provides. 
     We have also seen  the other extreme; homeschoolers gathering up supplies that do not provide enough material to make a comprehensive course. Balance is essential. We are very proud to offer this recently embellished World Geography program to middle/junior high school students. While we found it a challenge to provide truly comprehensive, consumable, and enjoyable social studies courses we are happy to report that feedback from parents and students tell us otherwise.

* those published for church affiliated schools

Our Criteria For Selecting Course Materials
The courses' components meets all our criteria. First and foremost on our list is the curriculum must be visually appealing but not too "busy". See sample pages below. It must also have student appeal while being as self-instructing as possible. In addition it must be comprehensive and adaptable to different learning styles. Because we specialize in providing write-in texts for our text supported courses we focus first on consumable text books and then compare them to their hard-bound counterparts. We were delighted to discover, once again, that the consumable texts came in first place in all categories.
     Course materials must offer a balanced amount of work. If, for example, there is not enough course material it cannot be comprehensive enough, while too much creates another host of problems. These include not allowing enough time to cover all the concepts or to go over concepts not readily understood. There is also the problem of student and teacher burn-out in addition to not having enough time for recreation and other family activities. See "Articles" SACC, One Subject a Day, and Testing.

COURSES LISTED BY GRADE
Below are the courses, or "themes" most students are studying per grade level around the country, these are the ones we offer. If you must have a different course, such as World Geography in 6th and World History not until 7th, we can accommodate you. If you cannot get what you need from this site call Curriculum Services at 877-702-1419. Most people adopt the courses that are most commonly taken at that level even if it is not what is taken in their area. Your choice should be balanced between what you must have and what is available. We will accommodate you if possible, however we cannot promise you a particular course in all cases.
  4th grade theme: US Geography 
  5th grade theme: American History
  6th grade theme: World History 
  7th grade theme: World Geography 
  8th grade theme: American History 

SAMPLE PAGES

From Activity Book 1

From the Student Test Book:


MAPS BINDER
Pictured below is a page out of our maps binder. This work in progress was reduced and is not to scale. The outline maps are on standard 8 ½" x 11" paper.
     Because students will learn and retain more by coloring an illustration than by just looking at a color plate a complementary grade appropriate maps binder, with one map for each week in the school year, is provided for every student. The principle behind the inclusion of coloring books for courses where much information is conveyed visually came from the college level. Among the first to show up were coloring books on anatomy and biology courses such as general biology, botany, marine biology, and geography. 
     The more time spent coloring provides greater learning and retention. The success of these binders, used as instructed, can be demonstrated. If one were to quiz two students, a second grader who diligently colors his maps and a high school student who does not the younger student, typically, will demonstrate surprisingly greater knowledge. The success of these binders stems from several factors. They include:

1) Brain Activity - this interactive activity involves more parts of the brain than looking. 
2) Time Factor - your student will spend a great deal more time coloring a map than he/she would looking at one. In fact, a 
    student can devote several hours to map work.
3) Creative Aspects - Students usually strive to make their maps as attractive as possible. Map work can be very enjoyable as 
    various mediums such as crayons, colored pencils, fine tipped markers, pen, and pencil can be utilized. If the student is 
    motivated he or she can embellish their maps by adding special features, such as hills, mountains, mountain ranges, forests, 
    rivers, bays, canals, lakes, trails, and deserts or adding additional political features such as cities, labeling bodies of water, 
    even major highways and waterways used for travel. A map can even be made to show climate, industry, or agriculture. A 
    corresponding legend can be added if desired.