BOOKS FOR CHILDREN, EDUCATION, AND HOMESCHOOLING
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OUTLINE MAPS, ATLASES, AND GEOGRAPHY ACTIVITY CARDS

Atlases / Outline Maps and Activity Cards

Atlases

AWESOME Atlas Activities: Challenges and Quizzes for the Classroom and Library by Sylvia Cilas, Educational Impressions, 2007. This treasure trove of exciting activities for grades 5-8 was to help students learn more about world geography. Its activities relate to continents, countries, capital cities, physical features and native animals. The activities emphasize mapping concepts and skills and using an atlas. They also incorporate some English and math skills. Activities for each continent are presented in the following sequence: creating continent maps using grid coordinates; using an atlas to locate places and physical features; using compass directions to describe locations of places; constructing and interpreting bar graphs of rivers, mountains and areas; drawing native animals using grid coordinates; and learning about animals through various challenge activities such as cloze, crosswords, word searches, alphabetical order, and more. The exercises in this book are different than those in most of the other books I've seen on the same subject and will make students work a bit harder and most will learn some new skills. Most books have longer reading passages with some comprehension exercises. This book requires using an atlas. There is not much reading except that in the exercises themselves, and that is minimal. It's more of a puzzle book that teaches skills. 65 pages. Reproducible for classroom use. BTH-3858. $9.86-D

The Steck-Vaughn Atlas of the World by Keith Lye. Steck-Vaughn, 1995. This colorful resource is handy if you want to locate a country, cities, landforms, or waterways. You can also find population, area, flags, and other country facts. Statistics are dated up to 1990. Other than that, and the cover, this edition seems to be almost identical to the 2002 edition. Contains Gazetteer, Glossary, and Index. 64 pages. BTH-3865. $7.95-S

The Steck-Vaughn Atlas of the World by Keith Lye. Steck-Vaughn, 2002. This colorful resource is handy if you want to locate a country, cities, landforms, or waterways. You can also find population, area, flags, and other country facts. Statistics are dated up to 2000. Other than that, and the cover, this edition seems to be almost identical to the 1993 edition. Contains combined Gazetteer and Index, and a Glossary The extra pages (over the 1995 edition) are all in the Gazetteer and Index . 72 pages. BTH-3866. $13.46-D

The Illustrated World Atlas by Alisdair Rogers. Crabtree, 1999. Paperback. This highly visual atlas is packed with maps, illustrations (over 280), including some carefully selected photographs. All features combine to offer a comprehensive and colorful introduction to all the continents of the world, divided into fifteen separate regions. The expertly written text includes extensive data files and fascinating key facts  and presents the detailed information in an easily accessible way. Every country on earth is included, along with its flag and relevant statistics. A comprehensive gazetteer and index help readers find their way around. Size: 9 3/4 x 13 1/4. BTH-3867. $13.46-D

Outline Maps and Activity Cards

Map Skills: The World, a Henning Communications production published by Milliken. Revised Edition, 2007. Students can explore the varied features of the world while reinforcing basic map reading skills. Sixteen student pages and accompanying blackline and full-color maps coordinate to provide a relational study of the elevation, vegetation, products, population, and peoples of the world. Student pages challenge students to combine maps and additional resources in order to answer questions and make judgments. Question topics follow the Five Themes of Geography as outlined by the National Geographic Society: finding absolute and relative locations on a map, relating physical and human characteristics to an area, understanding human relationships to the environment, tracing movement of peoples and goods throughout an area, and organizing countries and continents into regions for detailed study. For grades 7-9. BTH-4753. $17.96-D

The World: Blank Map Forms: The 46 reproducible blank maps of continents and countries contained in this book have a wide range of teaching applications. You can enhance your educational program by incorporating these maps into units of study, activity centers, and bulletin boards.

Here are some of the excellent uses for the 46 blank Map Forms (which, by the way, are perforated for easy removal from the book):

* Student-made atlases -- Have students save the maps you use for study. Once completed, have children make a cover and staple the individual maps inside.
* Political or physical maps -- Cover topics as diverse as world governments and topography with the same set of maps filled in with different information.
* Report illustration -- Encourage your students to complement any written report with a pertinent map.
* Bulletin board -- Enlarge a map for a wall display.
* Create a transparency for overhead projection.
* Activity center -- Make an enlarged map the focal point of games and matching activities.

A complete answer key for your easy reference is included. Shading and numbering where appropriate help frame the discussion of each geographic area. For example, each country that comprises Central America is numbered for students to identify. For grades 2-6. 48 pages. Cat.#BTH-909. $8.09-D

The World: Reference Maps and Forms by Jo Ellen Moore. this is an expanded and updated version of The World--Blank Maps and Forms (see above). This book has 92 maps and includes physical maps, political maps, and blank maps for students to fill out. The maps include the world, individual continents, Canada, the United States, Mexico, and U.S. Regions. Also included are exercises and work sheets for finding places on the maps,  evaluation forms, a crossword puzzle, a word search and an answer key. For grades 3-6. Addresses the geography themes of locations, place and regions. 112 pages. BTH-908. $15.29-D

 Building Skills by Exploring Maps Series: The books in this series teach the following skills: using cardinal and ordinal directions; estimating latitude and longitude; estimating distances with scale; reading the map key; and linking reading to the map. They teach to the standards for grades 4-6. Each book is 48 pages and includes answers. Here are the titles:

    United States and Canada by Alaska Hults. Creative Teaching Press, 2005. Reproducible for classroom use. This book will lead students to a deeper understanding of map reading by removing extra details that confuse them and leaving enough to keep the context of the map intact. Students will get practice reading the kinds of maps they will meet both in their nonfiction reading and in their travels. Among other things, students will read and interpret thematic maps and learn to locate their homes on a map. Besides the regional maps, there is also a map of Los Angeles and Chicago.
 BTH-2182. $9.89-D

The World: by Alaska Hults. Creative Teaching Press, 2005. Reproducible for classroom use. This book will lead students to a deeper understanding of map reading by removing extra details that confuse them and leaving enough to keep the context of the map intact. Students will get practice reading the kinds of maps they will meet both in their nonfiction reading and in their travels. This book addresses the standards needed for these grade levels, including explaining and using the coordinate grid system to determine absolute locations of places on earth; reading and interpreting thematic maps, estimating distances between two places in miles and kilometers, knowing world patterns of resource distribution and utilization, using a variety of maps and documents to identify physical and cultural features of neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries, and obtaining information about a topic using a variety of visual sources such as pictures, symbols, and maps. Covers major world regions. BTH-2183. $9.89-D

Ancient Civilizations by Alaska Hults. Creative Teaching Press, 2005. Reproducible for classroom use. This book will lead students to a deeper understanding of map reading by removing extra details that confuse them and leaving enough to keep the context of the map intact. This book also provides practice in reading the stories behind the maps. The standards addressed in this book include the following: Explore the ways various world peoples have developed in response to conditions in their physical environment; describe the ways the spatial organization of a society changes over time;  locate and describe the major river systems and discuss the physical settings that supported permanent settlement and early civilizations; and more.  Covers most early civilizations, including Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, Assyria, Asoka, the Phoenician trading empire, early Greece, the Persian Empire, the Han Empire, the Roman Empire, the Celts, the Inca, the Aztecs, and more. BTH-2184. $9.89-D

Continent Maps and Studies  from Golden Education Center. This book contains outline, waterway and political boundary maps and an individual fact sheet for each of the continents. (Antarctica only has an outline map and fact sheet.) There are questions, research activities and glossary that can be used with each continent. 64 pages: Teacher instructions and keys. Grades 4th - Adult. Cat. # BTH-1802. $7.16-D

Country Study Books   by Golden Education Center. Each individual country within each respective continent has new words to look up in a dictionary, a large outline map, one page of current facts (population, area, capital, largest city, flag w/description, additional interesting information and more), one or two pages of history through independence and a page of review questions at the end of each section. Bonus (research) activities are also at the end of each section. 96 to 112 pages; Teacher instructions and keys are provided.

South America Country Studies: Cat.# GEC-1975 - Grades 4th - Adult: $9.86-D
Far East Country Studies: Cat. # GEC-1935 - Grades 4th - Adult: $10.76-D
Middle East Country Studies: Cat. #GEC-1936 - Grades 4th - Adult: $10.76-D
Canada Province Studies: Cat.#GEC-1985 - Grades 4th - Adult: $9.86-D

Learning the Continents   from Golden Education Center. Students use maps to identify, memorize and locate the countries waterways and points of interest on each continent (Australia and Antarctica are not divided into countries). Each continent has 16 pages of map activities and a word search puzzle at the end for spelling review of the countries. 96 pages: teacher instructions and answer keys are provided. Grades 4th - Adult. Cat. BTH-1803. $10.76-D

Maps of the USA Revised Edition by Jo Ellen Moore and Sandi Johnson. Evan-Moor. 128 pages. This book has been updated and expanded. It contains geopolitical maps of each of the fifty states, political maps of the six regions, and political, physical, and thematic maps of the United States.  You'll also discover fun facts, geography bee-type questions, review pages, evaluation forms, a crossword puzzle, a word search, and an answer key.  For grades 1-6. BTH-910. $13.46-D

Maps of the U.S.A.:

Build a strong foundation of knowledge with this handy title. Contains 50 individual state maps, including detail of major rivers, lakes, mountains, deserts and oceans, plus time zones and special topics, such as the Original Thirteen Colonies and States.

For each state, students will learn: capital, land area, motto, nickname, admission date, state flower, and bird. A map of the United States appears with each state to indicate the state's relative position. Additional maps show the U.S. in relation to the continent of North America and the world. There is also a compass rose for each state map to help students answer questions related to directions.

Individual state map pages can be used in a number of ways:
* Introduce information about the state and challenge student knowledge
* Illustrate a report about the state.
* ask questions about directions from one state to another, size of states in relation to one another and identify bordering states
*Add additional information to the map -- cities, rivers, historical sites, state parks, mountain ranges, symbols of important crops or industries,
* Enlarge an individual map using an overhead or opaque projector to add and examine details.

There is also a reproducible Personal Geography page for students to fill in with information about their home town and state, and a complete answer key for your easy reference. For grades 1-6. 64 pages. Cat.#EM-191. $8.09-D This edition is now out of print, but I have a few left.

Outline Maps of U.S. States and Regions by Phillip Runquist.  A Dover Clip-Art Series book. Contains 161 different copyright-free maps printed on one side. Can be reproduced or used as clip-art. Contains labeled maps, unlabeled maps, maps of the whole country, maps of individual states, large and small. A great buy for only $4.45-D. Out of Stock

U.S. Outline Maps and State Studies; Ready-to-Use  Questions, Maps and Research Projects, by Randy Womack, Golden Education Center. This is a complete resource that can be used by itself or along with your regular history, social studies and/or geography program. It is an excellent book for introducing children to the different states and helps encourage them to continue learning more about each state. For each state there is a page of statistics and an outline map. At the beginning of the book there are two pages of questions. The first of these can be used with each individual state in turn. The other, "Additional Activities," has research oriented activities which require other resources. The author has also included information and maps of the United States and of Washington, D.C.. 108 reproducible pages. Good for grades four and up. Cat.#BTH-1804.  $10.76-D

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