Consider purchasing this quick vocabulary assignment to introduce your students to some basic geography terminology about landforms and bodies of water. You might even use it as a vocabulary quiz. The choice is yours! There are twenty terms found in the complete assignment, with kid-friendly definitions, and an answer key for quick, simple grading. The vocabulary words included are: Basin, Bay, Butte, Canyon, Cataract, Delta, Fjord, Flood Plain, Glacier, Island, Isthmus, Mesa, Peninsula, Plain, Plateau, River Mouth, Strait, Tributary, Valley, and Volcano. Also included, please find 6 puzzles: 2 crossword puzzles, 2 word search puzzles, and 2 cryptogram puzzles. For the puzzles, I divided the 20 vocabulary words into two segments. Therefore, each puzzle contains ten vocabulary words. I found that dividing the terms in this manner made retention easier for my students.

This map project is a fun, quirky way to allow students to demonstrate cartography and map reading skills. Let “Pirate Pete” guide your students through a culminating project about fundamental map skills: absolute location, the compass rose, the map key (or legend), and map symbols. The twist, of course, is that students must create their own treasure map, as instructed by Pirate Pete. The assignment might also make a good stand-alone substitute lesson for a day when you cannot be at school. Included in the packet is Pirate Pete’s introductory letter and a set of treasure map-making instructions.

This assignment introduces students to the six American standard time zones: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, and Hawaii-Aleutian. Students read a short, original non-fiction story about time zones. Next, they answer 15 questions (including two critical thinking questions) about American time zones.

This is a collaborative research project about United States geography that requires students to role-play as product designers for a fictitious travel association, Discover the USA. An excellent example of differentiated instruction, students may research any of the 50 U.S. states to find information that makes the state unique: major landmarks, landforms, major and minor cities, symbols, fun facts, etc. Working with partners, the team members will then choose one of five products in this assignment to show what they have learned: a PowerPoint presentation, a three-fold travel brochure, a mobile, a game or game board, or a map on poster board. To meet Writing Across the Curriculum goals, a two-page report on what they learned in the project is also required.

My students asked me to explain Kwanzaa recently. I decided to write this assignment to guide the process. "Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Life and Heritage" is a Common Core-ready reading assignment and critical thinking activity. It is intended for upper elementary and middle school students. Consider using it in reading, language arts, or geography class. It is quite flexible! Students will read a two-page passage that explains aspects about the holiday. They will then complete ten questions related to the reading. First, they must use the reading (or a dictionary) to define seven vocabulary words. Some of which are "Tier Two" and "Tier Three" vocabulary words. (If you are not familiar, the "tiers" refer to language objectives in the Common Core standards.) They will also answer three critical thinking questions in sentence form.

Would you like a fun, challenging way to teach students the fifty states and capital cities? This set of 25 FULL-COLOR Bingo game sheets will do just that! This packet contains a few components to help you and your students practice memorizing states and/or state capitals. You will find the following items: 1. Clue sheets for both states and state capitals; 2. Twenty (20) full-color Bingo sheets containing state outlines; 3. A full-color map labelled with both states and state capitals. What you will need: markers, coloring pencils, or regular pencils for students to mark the Bingo boxes I have used this packet primarily with middle school 6th grade students, but I believe it can be modified to work with upper elementary school students, too.

Absolute and relative location are two basic, important geography tools that all students must master. While there are many available assignments to teach these concepts to elementary school and middle school/junior high school students, here’s one with a twist! Students will locate all 30 NBA teams using absolute and relative location. Absolute location, of course, requires students to use latitude and longitude to give their answers. Relative location requires cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) and intermediate directions (northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest). This would be an effective assignment as the NBA season opens its latest season. Included, please find the assignment with chart for record-keeping, an answer key, a blank map, a political USA/Canada map, and an idea for an extension assignment. Plus, how about this idea for an educational technology twist? I used Google Earth and a custom-made kml file to bring the stadium tour to life in your classroom. I have included simple instructions to install the file on your laptop or desktop computer.

This is an extensive 12-page lesson plan packet using Star Wars to teach biomes. I have used seven Star Wars films to teach students about biomes with great success. The lesson plan includes a twelve-question assessment that (1) asks students watch scenes from the Star Wars films to identify real-world biomes including temperate deciduous forest, desert, Mediterranean chaparral, tropical rain forest, alpine, tundra, and temperate coniferous forest; and (2) then conduct research on these real backdrops to gain a deeper understanding of the delicacy of our world’s biomes. George Lucas’ Star Wars movies are a delightful mix of heroic stories, wonderful characters and monsters, and dramatic action sequences. Millions of people – including many young adults – love these films. Look closely and you will see vibrant, natural worlds lying beneath the special effects. After all, Lucas chose many real backdrops for the Star Wars sagas – Whippendell Woods, United Kingdom, and Tozeur, Tunisia, for examples. Now, you can use them to teach biomes to your science or geography students. I would suggest your students have at least a basic understanding of the biomes presented in this assignment beforehand. This assignment might work best after you have introduced biomes in your classroom and asked students to identify specific features of each. Included please find the lesson plan, teacher’s scene guide, student identification assignment and answer key, guidelines for the research paper, and a rubric to evaluate the research paper.

The Create Your Own Culture Project will give students hands-on practice working with concepts that are sometimes difficult to understand. What is a culture? What are culture traits? These are questions that students may struggle to define. If they are given the opportunity to create their own culture full of vibrant culture traits, I believe these concepts will be easier to master. Throughout this project, students are challenged to create unique characteristics and explain them thoroughly. There are other parts in which students must draw their creations. If used in its entirety, this can be a very powerful and engaging assignment! Of course, depending on your instructional goals and how much time you have available to you will also determine how much of the packet you may wish to use. Nothing in the packet is numbered – and for good reason! – so that you can mix-and-match handouts to meet specific goals. A complete project will give students the most immersive experience, but a handful of pages will also prove beneficial. A word of advice before you start: this assignment works best when students are required to take it seriously. They are asked to justify their answers in the assignment to cut down on “nonsense answers.” What about an extension idea? Consider displaying all of these projects displayed with colorful images and bold lettering on a poster board or bulletin board display. You might even host a multicultural fair in your classroom in which students present and explain the cultures they have created. What fun! If you should try this, would you please email me a photo or two of the finished work? I love seeing examples of how the assignments I write are used in the classroom.

This is a 6-page packet addressing the movement theme of geography. Students will read a short passage introducing the concept of movement and then label the locations of the world's greatest banana producers on a blank map. They will then plot the route they think a Mexican banana producer might use to transport their crops to a grocer in the student's community. Last, an enrichment essay assignment requires students to research a top banana-producing country to learn more about the country's process of production, its production history, and the economic impact of banana production.

In this project, students will design a walk-through aquarium full of exhibits containing their favorite marine mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and more! The challenge is that they must design their aquariums to scale. Thus, one inch on the map might represent 50 feet in their aquariums. I have taught map scale in several ways over the years, using worksheet after worksheet, to introduce the concept and allow students to practice it. I used political maps, highway maps, physical maps, and more, but I felt like I needed a project to allow my students more hands-on, critical thinking exercise to learn the concept. Recently, I developed this short project to give students just that. Included in this packet are: a brief teacher's guide, a step-by-step set of instructions including notes and a materials list, three sample maps, and a rubric for easy grading.

Would you like to enliven your science lesson with a fun, challenging writing project? The Rainforest Deforestation RAFT Writing Project contains a RAFT writing project for the social studies or science classroom. This project may be used as a creative research project or as a summarizing assignment to end a unit of study on the rainforests. What is a RAFT, you might ask? RAFT is an acronym for a powerful writing strategy that provides rigor, flexibility, and variety. RAFT stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. A RAFT can be implemented in all content areas, thus making it an excellent Writing Across the Curriculum resource. Young writers might pursue one of several genres of writing (expository, narrative, descriptive, argumentative or persuasive) to create one of several products (letter, television commercial, diary entry, etc.).

Students research the origins of the names of five American sports teams -- the Los Angeles Dodgers, the St. Louis Blues, the Seattle Sounders, the Boston Celtics, and the San Francisco 49ers. What is the city's relationship to the American sports team's name? Is it a historical, cultural, or geographical connection? Or a combination of two or three? Students also create their own team for their communities. They must base their team nicknames on a local historical, cultural, or geographical connection.

Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are disastrous weather events. What is the difference between them? Where do they strike? This geography-based assignment contains a short reading to answer these questions. Students then find absolute and relative location (geographic coordinates and cardinal/intermediate directions respectively) of tropical storm-prone nations. In the final part of the project, students research three in-depth prompts specific to hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons and how they affect people living in different regions of the world. They will then present their research findings in an essay. Research logs, blank maps, answer keys, and a rubric for student essays are included.

Just in time for those snowy winter months: "How hard is it to predict snow?" is a Common Core-ready reading assignment and critical thinking activity. It is intended for upper elementary and middle school students. Consider using it in reading, language arts, science, or geography class. It is quite flexible! Students will read a two-page passage that explains why forecasting snowfall is no easy process. They will then complete ten questions related to the reading. First, they must use the reading (or a dictionary) to define seven vocabulary words. Some of which are "Tier Two" and "Tier Three" vocabulary words. (If you are not familiar, the "tiers" refer to language objectives in the Common Core standards.) They will also answer three critical thinking questions in sentence form. There are no multiple choice or true-false questions here. I want my students to really use their noggins to succeed on this assignment!

This is a collaborative research project about Canada's geography that requires students to role-play as product designers for a fictitious travel association, Travel Canada. An excellent example of differentiated instruction, students may research any of Canada's provinces or territories to find information that makes their chosen place unique: major landmarks, landforms, major and minor cities, symbols, fun facts, etc. Working with partners, the team members will then choose one of five products in this assignment to show what they have learned: a PowerPoint presentation, a three-fold travel brochure, a mobile, a game or game board, or a map on poster board. To meet Writing Across the Curriculum goals, a two-page report on what they learned in the project is also required.

Absolute and relative location are two basic, important geography tools that all students must master. While there are many available assignments to teach these concepts to elementary school and middle school/junior high school students, here’s one with a twist! Students will locate all 30 MLB teams using absolute and relative location. Absolute location, of course, requires students to use latitude and longitude to give their answers. Relative location requires cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) and intermediate directions (northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest). This would be an effective assignment as the Major League Baseball season opens its latest season. Included, please find the assignment with chart for record-keeping, an answer key, and an idea for an extension assignment. Plus, how about this idea for an educational technology twist? I used Google Earth and a custom-made kml file to bring the stadium tour to life in your classroom. I have included simple instructions to install the file on your laptop or desktop computer. Find the link inside this packet. This tour allows students to utilize modern technology in the classroom to better understand the locations of baseball facilities while also observing diverse environments and city structures from the air. There are several other real world benefits and I hope you will share them with your students!

Absolute location is a very important geography concepts that all students must master. Latitude and longitude are two very important tools as well. This assignment encourages students to find 20 American cities on a map using only their coordinates. The assignment includes an answer key for easy review or grading. You may use the Internet, a classroom resource, or the map I have supplied to complete it. The choice is yours. This would be an effective assignment to use when introducing latitude and longitude in your classroom. It will help reinforce skills later in the school year as well.

The Flags of the World matching assignment packet requires students to match up the names of countries with their respective flags. The assignments come complete with separate name banks, which you can use (or withhold) depending on how challenging you would like to make the assignment. Answer keys are also included. There are eleven worksheets in this packet. These sheets include two Africa sheets, two Asia sheets, one Australia and Oceania sheet two Europe sheets, one North America, one South America sheet, and two sheets that allow students to test their knowledge of flags of countries from all over the world. This is a full-color assignment that would be great to introduce a new continent of study in a geography unit, to test students' abilities to conduct quick research, or to leave with a substitute teacher.

Are you tired of the same old geography worksheets? Your students are, too! Here is a project to keep them engaged while learning about location, population sizes, and simple logistics. Rock & Pop(ulation) is a collaborative assignment asking students to imagine they are part of a very successful musical act: a rock band, an indie outfit, a country group, or a rap collective. They must plan a tour to play for their thousands of fans. Students must work collaboratively – in groups of three or four – to “route” the tour correctly. They must play municipalities (i.e. cities) with a population size of at least 50,000 based on reported data. They must also be sure that the cities their band schedules to play from night-to-night are not too far apart. In this assignment, the logistics of a tour require large buses of equipment to move from city-to-city with enough time to set up the stage, lighting, instruments, and other equipment before the show.