Under each illustration, we also listed 3 – 4 keywords that would describe the landform. That was on purpose because I really wanted them to pay attention to the details of the landform or body of water. The order in the PowerPoint is alphabetical, but the printable is not! So each time we came to a new landform or body of water, the student had to find the corresponding illustration. I added animation, sound, and music! I also created a printable and a mini-book. It covers 14 landforms and 6 bodies of water. Last year I created a Landforms and Bodies of Water PowerPoint with the basic landforms and bodies of water.
Though California has just adopted a new Social Studies/History Framework, the third-grade section continues to state that third graders should study landforms and how these landforms have shaped the history of California. I also use various read-alouds which are very useful for developing the vocabulary. You can read more about how I use this APP HERE. I take pictures of the pages from our Social Studies text ( Reflections) on my iPad and use the PDFexpert app to project them for shared reading. The Social Studies text covers basic landforms found in California (I am in California).
I integrate Language Arts with Social Studies by using the Social Studies text as our reading material as well as other passages about landforms and maps. In third grade, it is the first unit I teach. So where do you start to teach Geography? How can you understand animal adaptations if you don’t know about biomes that have different landforms and bodies of water? The answer is: teach geography! Does anyone teach Geography anymore? Why can’t students look at a map and recognize the state they live in? The country they live in? The continent they live on? Do they at least recognize the Planet Earth? Ok, I’m being sarcastic, but we need to teach geography because geographical knowledge among elementary students is sorely lacking!īut why is geographical knowledge important? History and Science! How can you teach or learn about historical events if you don’t have some basic geographical knowledge? Even my seventh-grade son had to review some basic geography on a world map for his History class!