Drawing Around the World: Europe ~ A Schoolhouse Crew Review

I haven’t used very much geography in our homeschool yet, but I figured it was probably time since the kids are getting older. When the Crew was given the opportunity to review products from Brookdale House, I jumped at the chance to get my hands on some geography curriculum. We were chosen to review Drawing Around the World: Europe. We haven’t studied Europe very much so this really appealed to me. This product is available in both print and digital versions. We received the digital version. This is nice because I can use it with as many of my kids as I would like.

Brookdale House offers products for public, private, and homeschools. They first began offering homeschool products in 2006, publishing a writing curriculum that was based on the Charlotte Mason method of teaching. They offer products that cover topics such as grammar, Spanish, writing, Catechism, geography, and memory verses.

Drawing Around the World: Europe is the first in the Geography drawing series. They also offer one for the U.S. Most of my kids like to draw at least a little, so I figured this would appeal to them as well. They have the opportunity to practice their skills while learning about new countries. While this isn’t technically an art curriculum, it does combine both art and geography together.

Each week students will learn about a new country. On Day 1, students will trace the country of the week, then draw it in an adjacent box. They will also fill in information about the country’s population, religion, climate, etc. There is a traceable map of Europe; here students will trace the country they’ve learned about. Then there is a blank map where students will draw the country onto. Days 2 and 3 are similar to Day 1; students will trace the week’s country on the map and then draw it on the blank map. Finally on Day 4, students draw the country on a totally blank page. In later weeks, Day 4 also consists of listing all of the countries that have been discussed. Brookdale House provides several free resources on the product pages on their website. These are great to use for the fact pages and general geography lessons if you don’t want to purchase a full curriculum. There is a weekly schedule breakdown at the beginning of the book.

Since this is a digital version, there is quite a bit pf printing involved here, especially if you have more than 1 child you’re using this week. If you are a homeschooler who does a lot of printing I highly recommend investing in a laser printer and purchasing printer paper in bulk. Toners last much longer than inkjet cartridges.

I didn’t use this with Lucas because I don’t think he’s ready for it. However, it was great with the 3 oldest kids. Each one had printouts of their own for each day, but I laminated one of the traceable maps for each. This way they can reuse it one day a week, and then when they’re building on from previous countries the will have regular pages to trace. Each day has more than 1 page, and with 3 kids using it I wanted to save as much paper as I could. When we finish the course the kids should be able to draw and label their own maps of Europe by memory. There are 24 countries in total.

 

I love how easy Drawing Around the World is to use. With the provided resources, it’s not difficult to teach geography at all. It’s easily customizable to fit every family’s needs. At $22.95, it’s also very affordable, especially for families with more than 1 child.

 

Be sure to click through and read the reviews from my fellow Crew Mates. Our families all reviewed different products.