favorite thing - globes

I will start off by saying that I stink at geography... but I am getting better! :-)

Perhaps because I stink at geography, I have an obsession with collecting globes. One is always within a few feet for a quick check when I need to know where something is.

Almost every globe in our collection was purchased at a antique store for around $20 or less. At first I was concerned about having "out of date" globes in our house when using them for school, but it actually has been a plus.

For example... today Alex wanted to know about the USSR versus today's Russia (he got the Beatles white album yesterday for his birthday and had been listening to Back in the USSR)... we talked about it a bit and then went to the globes to look at the geographical differences.

This particular globe (which sits on top of my desk cabinet) is from the period of the USSR...
We got it down and took a look.

We then took a look at this globe, which was after the break-up of the USSR....
We played a little game of "spot the difference".

That globe above is my favorite. I almost didn't buy it. It was the last globe I purchased. It wobbles a bit and the stand wasn't a favorite.... I wasn't sure what I would do with a globe on such a tall stand... but it was a globe and it was only $25. Now it sits near the dining room table where we do our school work and eat our meals. We refer to this globes multiple times a week.... either because of something in our school work, something we've read in the paper over breakfast, something from our read aloud or just out of curiosity.

In addition to the two globes above, we have several more sprinkled around the house.

This little metal globe bank is tucked away on a shelf by the kitchen....
(it's twin is waiting to find a home in my new office.... if we ever get it done)

This is our one modern globe...
Alex got it as a Christmas present from his aunt and uncle one year. It's especially cool because when you plug it in... you see all of the constellations. This one usually lives in Alex's room, I'm not sure why he brought it upstairs, but he did and it's still here.

This is yet another globe in Alex's room...

I have the itch now to acquire more :-)

Oh.... I found a site one time that gave you the info to date your globes based on country borders and names. I need to find that again... I think that would be a fun "school" activity one day.

And yes.... the rest of my spelling ramblings is coming soon.

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Kez - The inflatable globe!!! I totally forgot about that one! We have one bouncing around here someplace too! And yes... the little tin globe is a piggy bank. I think they're adorable... you should see if you still have yours!

a couple of games...

Yesterday we took some time out of our day to play a couple of "school games".

The first game we played was Great States Jr..
The kids LOVE this game. It is very easy for all of us to play together. When you roll you land on one of three colors and pull a card of matching color. One color is about state names, so for example you may be looking for 3 states that start with N. Another color is state shapes, they show just the shape of the state and you need to find it on the board. And the final color is state pictures (I'm not sure exactly what they call it), each state has a symbol on it referencing something that it is famous for. The card tells the fact and shows the picture, then you have to find the state on the map. The game is great for Clara (age 6) but, even though he enjoys it, Alex is beyond this one. This game is geared toward non-readers and if they are readers, I wouldn't recommend it. Here's my beef with it... they list the answers on the FRONT of each card! Yes, they are in small print and upside down but now that Alex knows that they're there and how to read them, there's no going back. Maybe if you want to play this game with a reader, someone other than the person who's turn it is should draw and read the card (the answer is easily covered with a thumb). The instructions have each person drawing their own card so we've played that way for a while now. Its hard to change the rules now.


The second game we played was Sight Word Bingo. Nothing terribly unique about this game, but the kids enjoy it. Yesterday they added to the challenge by having some of their stuffed animals play too. So between the two of them they were managing about 13 cards. I like that this set has a chart of all of the words. This helps Alex with the concept of alphabetization.