Geography -- Sheppardsoftware.com

     When I was in school, learning geography involved purple, smelly mimeographed map pages, a sharp pencil, and small writing.  Luckily, now there is something better out there for kids.  Sheppardsoftware.com has lots of fun, FREE games.  However, the ones that we use daily for educational purposes are the U.S. Geography Games and the World Geography Games.  They're really not games, but don't tell that to my children.

     You start with a tutorial and then move on to quizzes.  My children have learned the states of the United States and their capitals, rivers, lakes, landscapes, and oceans (near the U.S.)  Next, they moved on to the countries of South America.  Now my oldest is tackling Europe, and my youngest chose the countries of Asia.  Every day, I have them review an old "area" and then work on a new one.  For example, today my youngest will take the quiz on the countries of South America and write down how many correct he got out of 20.  Then, he'll work on the tutorial for Asia.  After a few days, he'll start the quiz for Asia until he begins to get them mostly correct, consistently, while continuing to review an old "area" of study daily.  This takes about ten minutes a day per child, and they can do it independently.

     This program works.  When I was traveling to South Korea, my husband and son were tracking my airplane on the computer.  When my husband said that I was flying over Alaska, my then 8-year-old looked at the map and replied, "Actually, Daddy, she's flying over the Aleutian Islands."

     Did I mention that this program is FREE?

     ***Many thanks to Marla F. for introducing me to this website.***