Every Place Has a Personality

What makes a place special? What are the characteristics of the children's home town?

• Walk around the neighborhood and look at what makes it unique. Point out differences from and similarities to other places.
  
  
• Show the children the historical, recreational or natural points of interest in the area. What animals and plants live in the neighborhood?
  
  
• Use songs to teach geography "London Bridge", or "Meet me in St Louis" conjure up images of a place. "This Land Is Your Land" talks about many places that you can then look up on a map.
  
  
• Weather can affect the character of a place. The amount of sun or rain, heat or cold, the direction and strength of wind: all determine the way people live in a place, which crops grow and even whether or not people want to live there.
  
  
• Watch for weather forecasts on television or read the weather map in the newspaper. Talk to the children about how this will affect them. For example, what will they wear? Will they play indoors or outside?
  
  
• Make simple weather related devices such as pinwheels and wind chimes. Watch cloud formations and try to make your own weather forecasts! People shape the personality of the places where they live. Their beliefs, languages, and customs distinguish one country from another.
  
  
• Make different ethnic foods, take the children to an ethnic restaurant or treat them to ethnic snacks. Talk about why people eat different foods. For example, why do the Japanese eat so much seafood? If they look for Japan on a map, they will realize it is a country of many islands. Read stories about other countries and books that describe journeys.

Enviroments: People Interacting With Places

Geographers examine where people live, why they settled there and how they use their natural resources.

Look at the way the home is arranged. Talk about why the furniture is put where it is ands how people use different rooms.how this will affect them. For example, what will they wear? Will they play indoors or outside?

• Make simple weather related devices such as pinwheels and wind chimes. Watch cloud formations and try to make your own weather forecasts!
  
  
• People shape the personality of the places where they live. Their beliefs, languages, and customs distinguish one country from another.
  
  
• Make different ethnic foods, take the children to an ethnic restaurant or treat them to ethnic snacks. Talk about why people eat different foods. For example, why do the Japanese eat so much seafood? If they look for Japan on a map, they will realize it is a country of many islands. Read stories about other countries and books that describes journeys.
  
  
• Notice how people adapt to their surroundings. Sometimes roads are built around mountains or bridges are built over rivers. Walls are constructed to protect the ocean from sweeping over beaches.

Movement: People Interacting With Earth

Most people interact with other places every day. We depend on other places to get things we need and depend on other people to share information.

• Take the opportunity to use different modes of transportation. Try a train, subway or bus. If you are local to a waterway try a ferry or barge. Use the bicycle as a way to travel someplace.
  
  
• Play the license plate game. How many different states' plates can you identify? What does each plate tell you about the state? You can look at the license plates in parking lots if you are at the shopping center or mall.
  
  
• Go around the home and try to guess from where does everything come. Examine labels of clothes worn and think about where the food is grown. How did these things get into the home?
  
  
• Have the children ask older relatives or friends what the world was like when they were young. Look at old pictures. How have things changed