Geography, Navigation and Exploration Booklist

Bookmarking our latest finds as well as regular homeschooler favorites!

GEOGRAPHY

A Child's Introduction to the World: Geography, Cultures, and People - From the Grand Canyon to the Great Wall of China by Heather Alexander. In the same veinas the other A Child's Introduction to series eg,
A Child's Introduction to Poetry, A Child's Introduction to the Environment and A Child's Introduction to the Night Sky.

The Geography Book: Activities for Exploring, Mapping, and Enjoying Your World by Caroline Arnold.

Geography Wizardry for Kids by Margaret Kenda offers lots of geography-themed activities (map making etc) as well as recipes and son on for the hands-on learner. I've found the Kenda Wizardry series very fun to use off and on when kiddo was younger eg. Science Wizardry for Kids, Math Wizardry for Kids and Cooking Wizardry for Kids.

Hands-On History: Geography Activities (Hands-on History Activities) by Sarah D. Giese and Hands-On History: World History Activities (Hands-on History Activities) by Garth Sundem are books I'm hoping to use sometime in the future in a coop setting. These books offer history and geography lessons in a game and roleplay format!

NAVIGATION/ EXPLORATION

There's such a lovely list of books out there on the theme of navigation and map-reading! I was especially looking out for books and reference guides (written in a living style) to help the kiddo understand latitude and longitude better...but along the way, also got sidetracked into researching books on navigators, explorers and mapmakers LOL. Here are a few that I myself have read or really want to read!

Tools of Navigation: A Kid's Guide to the History & Science of Finding Your Way (Tools of Discovery series) by Rachel Dickinson (she also has a fun-looking book on time-keeping: Tools of Timekeeping)

The Man Who Made Time Travel (Orbis Pictus Honor for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children (Awards)) by Kathryn Lasky and also Sea Clocks: The Story of Longitude by Louise Borden (about one of my heroes, John Harrison, the clockmaker who helped solve the mystery of finding longitude at sea).


The Illustrated Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel (also about Harrison)

From Sextant to Sonar: Story of Maps and Navigation (Signs of the Times) by Anita Ganeri

The World Made New: Why the Age of Exploration Happened and How It Changed the World (Timelines of American History) by Marc Aronson and check out his book on Sir Walter Ralegh too! (thanks to Fiddler for reviewing this book recently)

Around the World in a Hundred Years by Jean Fritz (thanks to Fiddler for reminding me of this one too!)

Adventures of Marco Polo by Russell Freedman

Sea Cows, Shamans, and Scurvy: Alaska's First Naturalist: Georg Wilhelm Steller by Ann Arnold. I enjoyed the account of Steller's life and the pen and ink illustrations so much that I actually wrote a review on Amazon.

The Picture History of Great Explorers by Gillian Clements. The kiddo loves this one!

And a few more...plan to check these out of the library soon.

Explorers Who Got Lost by Diane Sansevere-Dreher

As Told at The Explorers Club: More Than Fifty Gripping Tales of Adventure (Explorers Club Classic) by George Plimpton and They Lived to Tell the Tale: True Stories of Modern Adventure from the Legendary Explorers Club may be better suited to older readers.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. I highly recommend the audio version here: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

The Wild Muir: Twenty-two of John Muir's Greatest Adventures and Stickeen: John Muir and the Brave Little Dog. There are lots of great books on another one of my heroes, John Muir but I wanted to bookmark these because they seemed like stories the kiddo would like too.

You may have noticed that I haven't included any books on Lewis and Clark. This was intentional. Kiddo has already watched plenty of documentaries and read several accounts on them so I didn't want overkill. I may compile a booklist on westward expansion and exploration later on if kiddo is interested.

If you have the time, please do suggest books you've liked on geography, navigation and exploration themes!