Early Childhood: Where Learning Begins: Geography

What's It Like?

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The second theme used by geographers is the theme of place. Every place has a personality. Just like people, places may have a lot in common, but no two are exactly alike. We can learn a lot about the people and the physical characteristics of any given place.

What makes a place special? What are the physical and human characteristics of your hometown? Is the soil sandy or rocky? Is the temperature warm or is it cold? Did important historical events occur there? Do you live near a river or lake? What physical features are most important or different from other places?

What about the people? How do they affect the characteristics of a place? What is their language, what do they believe in, what do their houses and buildings look like? What type of work do they do? All of these features define the special character of a place.

When your children learn about the trees, roads, and buildings that make up their neighborhood and city, they see that where they live is special. Young children can learn to name the physical traits of the places in which they live, naming the landforms, bodies of water, soil, plants, weather, and climate in their immediate surroundings from their own point of view.

What Is My Home Like?

Early experiences can increase children's awareness of the world around them. Learning about geography begins with children's ability to notice, examine, and think about their own environment. As very young children have direct experiences in their home and immediate environment, they will be able to build more accurate concepts of the Earth. These experiences will be useful when children move to the next stage of thinking.

Ages 2-3

• Toddlers learn about the world through their senses. By playing in water, sand, dirt, and even mud, they will learn about the physical characteristics of their home. By pointing out to them differences and similarities between your home and that of your friends or relatives, you will help them notice the human characteristics of home.

• Point out the special features of your home. Do you live in an apartment building with long halls, or in a house with a porch? Do most people walk everywhere, or do they drive? Are the buildings all the same color or many different colors? Baltimore has rows of houses with marble steps; New Orleans has houses with second floor porches; Arizona has houses that are only one story; farmhouses are near barns and silos. How do you describe the place where you live?

• A small pile of sand is enough to keep toddlers busy for a long time. Give them plastic containers with or without lids, old plastic bottles, spoons, scoops, a sieve, and a few small pots and pans. Feeling the sand or water pour through their fingers, pouring it from one container to another, watching it sift through the holes in a sieve, children are learning about their world.

• Young children are fascinated by water play. By playing with water, children learn its properties--it pours, it can be contained, it can be squirted. You can make water even more interesting by adding a few drops of bubble bath or soap suds. The bubbles will keep children interested. When you are bathing them, let them play in the bathtub, and help them describe the way the water feels and how it acts.

• Use songs to teach geography. ''Home on the Range,'' ''Red River Valley,'' and ''This Land Is Your Land'' bring to mind images of a place. Children enjoy folk songs of different countries like ''Sur La Pont D'Avignon,'' ''Guantanamara,'' and ''London Bridge.'' They can even play the game of London Bridge Is Falling Down.

Ages 4-5

• Walk around your neighborhood, looking at what is there and talking about it. Describe the surfaces on which you walk--''the grass feels soft,'' ''concrete is hard, so cars can drive on it,'' ''gravel feels bumpy under our feet.'' Encourage children to use their senses to become aware of the things that make up their world.

• As you walk with your children, point out the different types of houses, porches, sidewalks, and even streets. Play ''I Spy'' by saying, ''I spy something red'' and then have your children look around to find what you are ''spying.'' When one of them guesses correctly, he or she can become the ''spy'' and think of something for you to find.

• Look at the soil, plants, insects, birds, and other animal life. Ask what things you find most often in your neighborhood. What does the soil look like? Are there rocks and pebbles? Look at their shape, color, and size and describe them.

• How many birds and animals can you find in your neighborhood? Where do they live? Discuss what they might eat.

• Encourage your children to role play and don't be afraid to participate with them. You can pretend you are explorers walking on rocks over a make--believe creek. Have them hop on imaginary camels and wander into the kitchen--oasis for a glass of water.

What Is the Weather Today?

Ages 2-3

• As you dress your children in the morning talk about the sunshine or rain, the heat or the cold, and how they need to dress for the weather.

• Bundle up and take your toddler for a walk when it is windy, raining, or snowing. Talk about the experience--about how it felt to be outside, how you dressed for it, what the weather did to your clothes. What did the wind feel like? What did the rain smell like? Was the snow soft, and was it cold? How did things outside look different from when the sun was shining?

• Take a pinwheel outside, listen to a wind chime, or fly a kite. Let your children tell you what happened when they took their weather toy outside.

Ages 4-5

• Look at a large outdoor thermometer together and talk about what the temperature tells us about the day.

• Watch the weather forecast on television or read the weather map in the newspaper. Reading the weather map helps children observe changes in the local climate.

• Use a weather map in the daily paper to look up the temperatures of cities around the world and discover how hot some get in the summer and how cold some get in the winter. Look up the temperature in several cities, and have your children guess what that temperature might be. ''It's 45 degrees here in New York City. What do you think the temperature is in Florida today?'' Compare these figures with your town. Ask your children if they can think of reasons why different locations have different temperatures. Many children enjoy finding the place that is the hottest or the coldest.

• Watch cloud formations and make your own predictions. Will it rain? Will the weather change tomorrow? What do the clouds look like? Don't be afraid to guess, and then check your prediction later in the day.

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