If you’re on the hunt for free geography resources to supplement your homeschool, you’re in the right place!
Homeschooling can get expensive. From buying curriculum and supplies to supplementing subjects with outings, outside lessons, and other learning products. That’s why when I find great free homeschool resources I want to tell everyone I know!
I’ve already written about how to teach geography in really short daily lessons. Geography is one of those subjects that doesn’t need a lot of time and can be taught to multiple ages at the same time. No worksheets. No reading. Just looking at maps and going over the information out loud a few minutes a day.
<<<Check out my full post How to Teach Geography in 5 Minutes a Day to find out how I do it!>>>
This is a really great way to get everybody to have a pretty solid understanding of continents, oceans, cardinal directions, and such. I really recommend doing this as a family to get the basics down in fun, short lessons.
You’ll be amazed by how quickly even the youngest kids will soak up this information!
Once you’ve spent some time introducing basic geography concepts, your kids will be ready to get into a more detailed understanding of geography like states and capitals, countries and major cities, physical features, etc.
You can do this simply by looking at maps and memorizing then doing geography worksheets, but I find that once things get more complex this method can be tiring and kids will run out of steam.
I’ve got two great free geography resources that our family has been using this year- the first is great for visual learners, the second for auditory learners. They are wonderful tools for all learners, though, and should appeal to everyone.
For Visual Learners
The Best Geography Website
If you’re looking for a fun, free, and easy way to teach higher level geography, you have to try Seterra. It’s the absolute best geography website out there.
Why is it so great? It has online geography tests for every part of the world- both political and physical.
So, for example, if you are doing a U.S. states quiz, it will ask you to find a state. You need to click on the correct state and are given three tries to get it right. If you don’t get it right, the state will light up so you can know it for next time.
I’ve found that with this very visual correction, my kids have been able to learn very quickly.
There are hundreds of different quizzes to choose from, and they even have companion worksheets for each online quiz that you can print out to supplement online learning.
If your kids are as competitive as mine, the timed feature for the quizzes is a great tool.
Once a quiz is completed, you are given the percentage of correct answers and the time it took to complete. Once my kids have a pretty solid grasp of a certain topic (eg: 21 major world cities) they can try to get 100% correct in the shortest amount of time.
I’ve found that when kids are having fun and a subject is taught like a game, learning really takes off.
If you’re struggling to teach geography or want to find a fun way for kids to practice, I highly recommend checking out this website. It is honestly one of the best free tools out there!
For Auditory Learners
Sometimes memorization can be tough.
I remember really struggling as a child to learn the U.S. state capitals. No amount of repetition would help me.
Then in 5th grade, I had a really special teacher who put up visual depictions of the states and capitals (ex: Louise and Anna holding a red baton = Baton Rouge, Louisiana). I was a visual learner, and this did for me what no amount of oral repetition could.
This next tool is wonderful for auditory learners, but it’s really something that everyone will enjoy.
I’m dating myself here, but I loved watching the show Animaniacs as a kid. They had this one episode that had a song going over all the U.S. states and capitals.
Learning the song is a great way to learn them- especially for auditory learners! The song can be found on YouTube, and you can download a free printable of the lyrics below.
From experience, it can take a really long time to memorize all of the lyrics. Once they’re learned, though, they stick!
I broke memorization down by stanzas, so we would tackle one block of lyrics each week. By singing it throughout the week, it was easy to learn it all and be ready for the next segment.
This is a really great way for everyone to learn together. Even my 5 year old can recall lyrics to tell me state capitals now!
If you’re looking for ways to add some life into your geography lessons, consider adding these resources into your repertoire. And rejoice because it’s not every day you get awesome homeschool resources for free!